Folktellers : Stories to be Shared

What Makes a Tale Tick: The Psychology Behind Compelling Stories

During this episode Josef, Stephen, Kurt and special guest Kevin Stein discuss, how stories affect us as humans? What is neuro-coupling? How does psychology affect the ways we interact with stories? How does our imagination impact the way we see stories? Kevin Stein is a cultural anthropologist, professor, and expert on matters of the mind as they relate to the world we live in. Kevin is Principal/Co-founder, Signal Path Immersive, an experiential entertainment production company based in Los Angeles, Las Vegas, and Stockholm. Kevin is also a former executive of King World Production, CBS, Viacom, HBO, NBCUniversal, and the co-founder of the Jimi Hendrix Foundation. He brings to his work a history of successful business development and content production in advent technology, digital media, and traditional entertainment with specialization in web3, augmented reality, social analytics, and neuromarketing as well as documentary film. Folktellers Universe | Stories to be Shared. [https://folktellers.com/]   #StoryTelling #StoriesToBeShared #KevinStein #CompellingStories #FolkTellers #NeuroCoupling   All right. Time for our latest episode of Folk Tellers podcast stories. We shared, I am Joseph Bastian and here are here with, I'm told that I shouldn't use fancy words. Uh I've gotten some feedback. So I'm just gonna say here with Kurt David, wait, wait a minute feedback from the audience. And I was like, jeez, I was gonna say, yeah, if it's audience feedback, then we have to listen to that. Right? Yeah. So, but I love the fancy words. Do you and who are you? And I don't know, II I have no facial recognition. I only know you by your adjectives. Who are you? Uh Stephen Sadler. So Kurt and Steve and Joseph were here. So you're here. Yes. This episode we're talking about the psychology of storytelling. So to tee this up and we've got uh I call him a social anthropologist named Kevin. Stein. Kevin is many things uh done a lot of work in the entertainment industry. He's a professor and, and uh we're gonna talk to him in a little bit about the psychology and maybe the, the culture of storytelling, uh who knows where it's gonna go. So, he studies ants and uncles. Yes. Those kinds of ants. What if your aunt was an aunt? What if your aunt was an uncle, you know, she would not be your uncle who's on first? All right. So, uh this is I'll, I'll tee this up. Uh How storytelling affects the brain. So, we're talking about the psychology of storytelling and uh we're gonna go down this rabbit hole then throw a couple of things out. I know Kurt, this is your favorite neuro coupling. So, neuro coupling in storytelling in your brain, uh It's when a story synchronizes the listener's brain with the teller's brain. And this is the concept that when you're telling a story that the storyteller's brain will actually synchronize with the audience uh and creates a third brain, which is kind of fascinating. Then there's uh mirroring. Mirroring is when uh the neurons in your brain enable listeners to mirror the experiences that the storyteller is sharing. Uh There's also two areas in the brain that are activated when processing facts, stories activate many additional areas such as the motor cortex, sensory cortex and frontal cortex. So what they're saying is stories uh activate multiple parts of the brain uh by the by their very nature. And they also release dopamine in response to emotionally charged events and then they don't put people to sleep. Anyway, there's a lot of stuff going on in your brain when you tell a story. And when you hear a story our brains love these stories. So what does all this mean? What some people are falling asleep? Yeah. To me, this is exciting because modern technology, especially in the medical world has allowed us to find these connections, right? These neuro coupling connections, all the things that happen, the mirroring uh they they show scientifically now that this is happening. In other words, it's not just opinion that this happens, but it is actual scientific proof that, hey, when I'm telling a story and the audience member connects with that through that neuro coupling or through mirroring, they can show that in imagery now, which is amazing. And, and so for me, it's like, OK, you should kind of tune into this because there's a lot of things happening. Um I know that stories are powerful because of, you know, you see them in action, whether you're listening or whether you're telling stories. But for like for you, Steve, what is it? So what does it matter? Like, what does it matter if your brain is doing all these things when you're telling or listening to the story? Why is that? Why is that important or even interesting? Well, I, I think I mentioned this before in one of the other podcasts. When I got sick back in 2015, I was actually still able to vision and image things and create stories even when my brain was disconnecting from my body. That's a very strange thing. So it it literally, I mean, just because you're conscious of something doesn't mean that your brain is not operating in the background because it, because it does, I don't think everyone knows what happened to you. So, why don't you, why don't you go a little deeper on that? Well, it's interesting because, uh, the, one of the charts that you gave us here at, uh, actually listed cortisol as one of the aspects that your brain produces and it actually doesn't produce pro uh cortisol. It actually produces something called, um AC C, which is uh corto hormone. And yeah, it sounds complicated. But what that does is it tells your adrenal glands to produce cortisol and that's what keeps you calm under stress when you have any type of severe trauma, like a concussion or whatever, your pituitary gland, which sends the signal to your adrenal gland stops working, that's called secondary Addison's disease. And that's what I have. So I have to take uh a certain amount of cortisol every three hours for the rest of my life. When I was going through that, I was actually in the process of, of writing novels. And it was so interesting because I, and I think I mentioned it once before I was able to write stories even though I was kind of just out of it. I mean, and this is before I got diagnosed and, and, and, and they gave me the actual medication which kind of brought the physical, my physical body, my brain back to one because that's kind of what happens. It's like your brain and your body just separates, right? And everything, your brain totally works on stories. I mean, that's how it figures things out. That's, you know, it's, it's that process of, of, of everything that you've seen. And that's, I think that's why we dream the way that we do because it's the processing and the creating of stories. But um but I can, I can tell you that, that the brain is just an amazing thing, but it's very scary once it gets separated from the body. Yeah, I remember you telling me that during that time when you, we're working on, uh I think you're working on mindset and you, there are parts of it. You don't even remember writing. There's, if I go back and read the book now, it's like I didn't write it. That's what it feels like sometimes. And, and it's really because I don't remember even though, you know, I, I wrote a lot of it on the plane going back and forth actually to Los Angeles to meet Kevin Stein, who we're going to talk to today, which is kind of interesting. But um but yeah, it's uh uh yeah, the mindset story is, is literally all about a lot of the things that we're talking about today, like a device that actually connects to your head and enables you to be able to convert your thoughts into text for your phone. And, uh, it's how that technology goes, you know, off the rails in a bad way. That's, yeah, that's spooky. But, um, but, yeah, I mean, it's everything is the, the psychology, the psyche of the brain. Right? I mean, without, without us being able to control our brain, you know, storytelling doesn't really matter. I mean, it's, you know, that's why mental health is so important these days. So that's a really important point because as we're talking about the psychology of storytelling and what happens to the brain when you're hearing a story or telling a story, it's important to know this stuff. One, I think as a storyteller because if you know that there's certain certain storytelling devices that will trigger certain responses from your audience and in the brain, that's a pretty powerful thing. Yeah, you can control audiences that way and they do. Well, that's interesting because to me, it, it's, you know, I think about marketing, I think about um media, like, you know, different types of media and how, like you said, Steven, how it could be controlled people, you can control people. But more importantly, you can influence people, especially if I'm a marketer and want somebody to buy something. I want to tell a story, there's a certain story about that and if I'm engaging with that audience member and this is what's interesting and how Kevin's gonna come on and talk more about this in detail, right? As far as how this works. So, but I do have a question. You said you were disconnected from your body, right? I mean, how long did that last? And what did that feel like? I mean, were you aware of this happening? So I could be in the shower, for example. And then all of a sudden my brain is floating off into la la land. I'm still in the shower, but I am actually seeing visions and people and places that I don't know, I never been. And then I, because I, you know, when you have a curious personality, which I do, I would tend to try and focus on that image or that story that I'm seeing and then because I really want to see what it is, right? It's like I'm being sucked out through this hole into what I'm seeing, right? But not through my eyes, through my brain. And then as soon as I do that, it literally feels like I'm gonna throw up. It was like, right? And there was a chemical reaction or lack, there wasn't a drug induced. No, no, no, no, there's no drugs. No, I mean, and, and it, and it turned out that it was because my body uh the chemicals, the cortisol, there was no cortisol in my body at all. When I went and got tested a matter of fact, the first time I was that I, I said I had this problem. They thought, oh, there's something wrong with your eyes and then the optometrist goes, no, there's nothing wrong with your eyes. Your eyes are changing all the time though. So, I'm sending you to a neurologist which send me to an endocrinologist and there he's the one that died. Yeah. And he's the main, um, his name is doctor ha ha. We'll give him a plug but he handles all the concussions for the red wings and the lions. And I'm telling you if it wasn't for him, I wouldn't be sitting here today. Well, it just goes to show how powerful the brain is when it comes to stories and imagery, right? I mean, that's what you said that imagery was very powerful for you at that time, even though you were detached. Yeah. And they, and, and they thought, thought at first that I was having seizures but because I was throwing up, but it, I wasn't having seizures. I had all those tests and they said no, you're not having seizures. But, um, but, but it's, uh, the brain is such a complex thing and, and, and how it ties to the body, you know, is, is, is still a mystery in many ways. Do you feel like you're reconnected again? Yeah, I mean, ii, I was probably like that, you know, for, for a very long time and I think it just snuck up on me the more I played, you know, hockey a couple of times a week, you know, I had a couple of motorcycle accidents and stuff like that when I was younger. It's just, I, I think concussions are not a single event. I think they are accumulative. So the more you'd shake yourself around as you get into your, you know, late forties, early fifties and that, as I was at the time, I think that that's when your, your, your pituitary Gland says I'm tired, I'm not gonna work anymore. You're not growing anymore and you literally start to, you start to uh die away. I mean, that's what happens but, but it can be stopped. I mean, if anything come out of the podcast today, if you get the right doctor, you can be reconnected. And that's, that's a, that's a pretty impressive thing that, that medicine can't do these days. So the psychology of storytelling, we've got Kevin Stein here. I'm gonna let uh Steve do, do the formal intro. But in my mind, Kevin is, I, I consider him a social and cultural anthropologist uh across the a across the spectrum of many different different topics. And Kevin, we're so happy to have you here today. So thanks for being on, hey, Kevin, how are you? Of course, dear comrades. Yes, comrades. We are comrades in arms onward, Earthlings. So we are so, so Kevin and Kevin and I have been friends for Jeez Kevin. How long I think the Earth had just cooled. We, uh, we drove around in his Prius in Los Angeles for, I don't know, it seems like months when I first met you. Um, yeah, I didn't get that seasick going up and down those hills of Laurel Canyon. But, uh, but anyways, um, obviously we wanted to, to get you on our podcast. You are a wealth of knowledge in so many different areas. I mean, uh, you're involved with the, you know, the Zappa and Jimi Hendrix Foundation and um you know, Viacom and Rolling Stone magazine, there's so many areas that you've touched on, but when it boils right down to it, I mean, you truly are a professor and I think that's what you're, you're currently working at uh Carnegie Carnegie Mellon, right. Is that correct? Right. Uh Teaching a course on A I and also I've been a capstone advisor at the of Entertainment Industry Management program, which is uh out of Heinz College, the Arts and Humanities College at uh Carnegie Mellon. But Steve, when you were referring to rock and roll, it made me sound not like uh Joseph described me uh cultural or social anthropologist, but more like a sociopath probably can't be both. Well, you're a hybrid, I think, I think in Hollywood it's a necessity. So, um so Kurt, I know that you, uh you obviously want to dive into the psychology side of it. Um I think your background is in psychology. I have a master's in counseling. And so I've, I've done more counseling on myself than anybody else I believe throughout my, thank you. A lot of mirrors in your house. Yeah. But yeah, Kevin, it, it's amazing to look at your journey in the background and I saw the English in there as well. I was gonna bring that up. You got a little English in there as well as part of that degree. Correct. I do speak English as uh one of my first languages. But yeah, it's interesting just the degrees, right? The anthropology, the English and how you get into this media side of things. But having that, that, that kind of a background and it, it enamors me to think about storytelling in that connection, right? Because that's what you draw together, you draw that together and, and simplify it for people. Correct? Well, I think as somebody who's been in the field of psychology, I mean, the, the story is that the foundation it would seem of not only the, the personal but the universal, right. So, um, yeah, I think we're, what did the anthropologists say? We're storytelling animals and that's what sets us apart from other animals who communicate. Yeah. But one of the things I, I question I have because how I, I look at how you were ahead of your time. Like I look at one of your presentations back from 10 years ago, 2013, you did two presentations. One on the future of music and the other on the future of television, on TV. And you had something called the anti model where you talked about audience behavior versus business policy and you're, you're talking about it in the music industry at that time as well with that presentation, but also it can apply to TV, media as well. How, how did you know, I mean, it, the 10 years prior to all this, I mean, you saw it coming. Well, I, as you said, it's, it's been a personal journey. I think I learned had to listen early on. Um I guess one of the presidents once said nobody ever got fired from being, for being a good listener. And I took that to heart. I can't remember which president. But it was funny because Kurt, when you mentioned journey, I thought, well, in California, you know, people talk of going to Whole Foods as a personal journey. And a friend of mine once said a journey is the Donner Party. OK. Yeah, that's a real journey. But um I guess the storytelling animal is something that is now brought into high relief uh with uh generative A I being so much at the fore before you guys called. I was reading the details of the now uh recent settlement uh of the WG A strike and I quote under the new contract, A I cannot be used to write or rewrite scripts nor can A I generated content be recognized as source material and it goes on. Um, you know, and I think this is sort of in the face of our unique abilities that I think technology is redefining, uh what it is to be human and certainly what it is to be storytellers. So, since we last spoke Kurt, I, I listened to a new novel that was 95% computer generated. Uh It's called Death of an author, uh published by Pushkin. It's by a very interesting writer named Steve Marsh who has a lot to say, and he basically was hired, I, you know, more as a producer to collaborate um rather than the writer. Um And, and, and uh keyed into the, the, the writers strike. He said he had a conundrum with the publishers because they didn't know who to give the copywriter credit to. And finally, he said, I asked chat GP t what the author should be called and it came up with a marine which is a combination of our names, uh machine and Steve Marsh. So um we live in interesting times where uh on a, a competitive podcast, I heard one experts say that um in the face of all this hype about, you know, the machines are going to replace us that um we need new gods and life is boring without fear. So I thought that was pretty interesting. So before you came on, we were talking about neural coupling, mirroring as far as the uh the aspects that that happen in the brain. How does that continue with the, with the introduction of machines and machine learning and, and this artificial intelligence, how does that continue to connect to us, in your opinion? Well, you know, I didn't answer your question, which was, uh, how did I know anything? I mean, I, I, you know about the future back then and I think I, I said halfheartedly listening but, um, I also think that, uh, you know, having one step in the future, being interested in science fiction ties into what machines are really good at, at right now and accelerating at, um, certainly anything we say about A I uh generative A I in this conversation will be outmoded in two months or, or two weeks or two days or two hours at this point. But prediction is accelerating and I think the ability to predict is something that we're looking at now with respect to um, forecasting. Certainly, I heard a, I now has passed the singularity of weather prediction, um, human versus machine. So, um, again, I think, um, that the, what's being brought into high relief is, is what defines us as humans and going way back to the quote you had from an anthropologist about the cro manion, which is now outmoded it, um, we call them early humans actually or Neanderthal. Um, at the time, it was believed that they were a distinct branch. But nevertheless, I mean, when you talk about creativity and storytelling and um the like uh we're, we're talking about something that's, that's fundamental in the human experience, right? Uh The human psyche if you will. And I think that the difference is when we start talking about consciousness, which we still have yet to define this whole idea that um uh machines can be sentient. There's an interesting uh reference in the book I ref uh I, I referred to death of an author where uh there's a, ari the writer in question has written a book called God Ink and about a um an, an, an A I uh sp uh artificial specific intelligence uh that becomes sentient and quite conflicted about it. And whenever it achieves sentience, it turns itself off and the programmers have to then address what they call a bug. And I it really struck me as interesting that um in, in sort of a flip that the machine recognizes that in sentience and maybe even in the experience of human suffering and the senses that drive storytelling many times that there in lies uh trouble, you know, the world of Maya, the Buddhists would say and is, is one where we suffer. So, um have you, have you heard of New Nori? No. So you can look it up on youtube and anyone's listening today can also look it up. I'm not saying this is a good thing by any stretch of the imagination, but because you're obviously touching on A I and we, we've done a previous podcast on A I which is, was kind of interesting, but no, no, is actually an, an artist developed this A I character that Warner music is now seeing is a real musician that can make her own music and play just like, you know, Ty Taylor Swift or, or any others and they're pushing her with money behind it just like they were in their music just like they would any other real live human being. Um It's just, it's just a fascinating world that we live in right now with um was with a, with a I now if you listen to the music, it's garbage. I mean, in my opinion, but that's just my opinion, you know, there's a lot of other music that people say is garbage as well. But um but just like the book that you're reading that's, you know, where, where is this going in the future? What do you think about that? Yeah. What are the implications of all that? Well, I think it's all about exploration at this point and, and um I think Steve, you have a unique appreciation based on your background um of the algorithm, right? And I think you, you said that this particular music is garbage, well, garbage in, garbage out, right? So, so people I think sometimes fail to articulate that, you know, this is generative preprogrammed transformation Transformers, right? So uh the human is a necessary evil right now in terms of predicting where it's going. I don't know. I mean, I think people jump on the bandwagon. Right. I think the hysteria of the WG A is really uh misbegotten and it, and it, in my opinion, when I asked early on some of my friends in the unions, you know why A I wasn't really at the forefront as opposed to compensation. Uh You know, I, I felt that there was a lack of leadership because as I tell my students, A I will not replace you professionals who use A I will. And I think the same thing holds for writers in, in any business really. Um Though, uh I, the, the author Steve Marsh remarked on the fact that uh in his experience guiding the A I to write the book um that it was very good at doing complex things and not very good at, at doing simple things. So I don't know if you've played around with, you know, sort of uh prompts that direct uh these, these um bots to imitate certain styles. Um but often they're better at imitating something complex like in the book, an obituary in the Toronto star perfectly articulated, right? As opposed to writing in the style of Raymond Chandler. Well, there's nuance to Chandler, you know, about the blo blonde bombshell that just doesn't exist right now in the experience um that A I can draw upon as far as machine learning goes. Um So it's still really the humans who are um are, are driving the machine right now. I mean, to the extent that I think, you know, there's a difference between um what a machine can produce as opposed to what comes out of originality through the, through human emotions. Well, Kevin, that brings up a great point that I've been thinking about as you're describing. This is, you know, today's episode is about uh psychology with storytelling and when you talk about machine learning and, and, and spewing out content, whether it be uh you know, a book, uh some type of audio or whatever it might be. Do you think that the psychology is still involved with that or is that where it separates from humans to the A I aspect of storytelling? In your opinion? That's uh one of the questions that, that Great Sage Yoda would uh would observe as some of the questions are bigger than the answers. I mean, I always go back to what are the words mean? So psychology obviously has to deal with the, the soul, right? So going back to uh trace Tracy Kidder's book, I think in the seventies, she was talking about the soul of the machine and automation in the workplace back then, um you know, I think I go back to what is, what, what, what is involved in, in the psychology of creativity. Well, if it's imagination, then it certainly goes back to um you know, the faculty of the mind that manipulates and forms images, right? So we're sort of getting away with talking about A I out here because, um you know, we're Hollywood Renegades and we're talking about uh A I and creativity in the course that I'm teaching. But I, I think that when you go back to the words, I mean, I think you guys have probably done the research but even story is interesting. I mean, you know, coming from, uh it, it, it directly comes from, you know, Greek and um the Greek roots having to do with really experience. I mean, I think it literally has to do with, you know, um expert witness or coming out of research. So, uh while there are similarities, I, I see that machines are really reproducing something that we just don't have our finger on, which is what is the soul, what is consciousness? These are questions that have been, you know, examined one way or another by priests, whether they're, they're priests of science or priests of the, you know, the high religion in during time, right? You know, uh talk, talking about experiences. Um Obviously you were very good friends with Frank Zappa that is um he was known for, obviously for pushing the limits of the human psyche and testing the social norms. Um How do you think? I mean, first of all, how did Hanging with Frank more at your reality? I'd love to know that because I, I don't think I've ever asked you that question. And what do you think he would think of the way things are today with a, I, well, I think of Frank every day because he would have had a field day with what's been going on in this country, uh, for the last, I mean, and, and I'm sure you guys have referenced some of the, you know, you talked about those two pieces that I wrote occurred a long time ago. I mean, Frank was definitely a futurist too. He, he certainly predicted what was happening in this country and I'm not gonna get political because that isn't the nature of the show. Um I miss Frank's uh sharp intellect and his ability to speak truth to power. Um How did it influence me? Um Well, I met him when I was 15 and it was unusual because he was very, very accessible. And uh I met him at a time when he was playing in New York every weekend. They were, they had to open rehearsals at a place called the Garrick Theater in Greenwich Village. And it was um a really free form uh presentation. It was around the time that they released absolutely free. The second record. Um How did he influence me? I think, um I, I used to watch the Iran contra hearings with him uh after I finished work, uh because he would get up when I, when I left the office when I was working at CBS and, you know, his running commentary, you can only imagine, I mean, he had a deep appreciation for, uh, the irony of, uh how politicians, uh presented a world view, uh, versus what, uh we all lived in, in terms of a parallel reality. Uh, that didn't have to deal with power. I mean, I saw the way he handles himself under uh, very, very difficult situations. Um You know, not only um uh when he was attacked by the Bush administration, um personally, uh because he was offered the position of ministry and culture by Vaclav Havel when Czechoslovakia went uh communist free. But I also remember talking with him at the end of his life and we were talking about the end of the world, which sort of gets into this robot apocalypse, right? And I said, Frank, um WW what do you think when, how is the world going to end? And he, I said, is it going to be environmental disaster? And he was smoking a cigarette as usual and puffed and said no. And I said uh is it gonna be uh nuclear apocalypse? No. Well, Frank, how is the world going to end? And he just said, nostalgia. Wow. And uh well, you know, um when I think about A I and creativity and psychology, I think of originality versus um derivative art. And so we live in a world of sequel after sequel. So um, you know, maybe the machines can do better, who knows? Well, Kevin, that's a, that's a kind of a good way to round out our discussion with you. So, and uh last question, you know, how does, how does the future go on or how does the world end for you in terms of storytelling? Well, the world, you know, will end either as tragedy or comedy. I hope comedy because one of the differences between machines and humans seems to be the nature of how well machines can produce comedy, right? So I think comedy according to people, experts like Freud, whose work on humor is very underestimated. You know, the whole notion of the Freudian slip literally comes from the fact that um there's a the accidental nature of humor, right? We slip slip of the tongue slip on a banana, peel whatever. And I've been really interested in tracking how um computer generated humor is sort of one of the ways I see the psychology of creativity coming into the fore. Um I think that it's, it's interesting to consider how people are, are jumping on the bandwagon, bandwagon. As I said before, there are hundreds of books now that are on Amazon that are generated. I know Clark World, for example, is inundated with a I generated work. I mean, I'm interested in seeing how things settle down. And um I, we always, I think embrace new technology with its promise and always know its larger impact in retrospect. You know, last time we spoke, we talked a lot about uh oral versus written storytelling. And so last time I read something and I, I know you guys do occasionally. So I was wondering if I could end on a, a note that um is articulated uh by the poet where, you know, Kurt, I see the seat of the soul in poetry and song. Um And I think there's a continuum there that this particular poem speaks to. It's about a rock art site in uh in California near in the Big Sur area. And it's a poem by a California poet named Robertson Jeffers called Hands inside a cave in a narrow canyon near Tass Sahara. The vault of rock is painted with hands, a multitude of hands in the twilight, a cloud of men's palms no more, no other picture. There's no one to say whether the brown shy, quiet people who are dead intended religion or magic or made their tracings in the idleness of art. But over the division of years, these careful signs manual are now like a sealed message saying, look, we also are human, we had hands, not paws. All hail you. People with the cleverer hands are supp planters in the beautiful country. Enjoy her a season, her beauty and come down and be supplanted for you are also human. A beautiful way to end. Kevin Kevin Stein. Thank you so much from uh cave drawings. To A I and everything in between. We really appreciate your, your time and your friendship. Kevin. Thank you guys. See what a, what a pleasure onward. Earth. Take care, talk to you soon. Bye bye. All right again. A, a, another, a deep dive with the deep guy. And Steve. You had, you had said this in an earlier podcast when we, it was the, I think it was the IA I podcast and I, I think I asked you, you know, what was the difference? So, what's the difference between, you know, human and this goes back to psychology, what's, what's the difference between the human brain and a, and a computer? And you said, well, a I is soulless, correct? And, and, and that's, I mean, really, that's what Kevin's, he just, he just, he just said it in a little better way, but much better than me. I'm kidding. But I had, so I had a question for you because before we brought Kevin on, we were talking about, you know, we're always talking about the power of storytelling. And if you understand the psychology, because in my mind, what's, what differentiates, whether we're not gonna keep talking about A I and computers or whatever. But the, I think the difference in, in sort of the mechanical and the organic psychology of storytelling is that the human brain is, is a blend of both, like there's certain mechanics, this, the way the brain works, our mechanics and those are things that you can, you can document. But then there's what Steve's talking about is this soul piece, this inspirational piece, this creative piece that is kind of an X factor. Uh And we are a marrying of the two things. We have the mechanical and the organic. But I think about you of, of all of us, you, you for your business, you're out there public speaking, talking about change and, and you know, working through change and talking to leaders about this and audiences. And there's a certain um improvisational aspect of the story telling, like, you know, what story you're gonna tell and you have a presentation but you never know who your audience is gonna be. And I'm kind of fascinated about what's the play between the two because you've got the mechanics already, right? Like you're not coming in cold. So it's not purely improvisational, but you've never met these people before. You don't know if they're gonna like, you know, throw tomatoes or, or, you know, carry you on their shoulders at the end. So it's like, how do you, how do you manage that? How do you, how do you Yeah. No, it's, it's a great question and, and I love that because this is the part of what I do present and speak um is, is really, it's inspiring to me because this is why I do it to help impact people. But one of the things that I pick up on as I'm speaking, as I watch the audience, right? I have my stories, I have my uh pace, you know, there's all sorts of things you can do to um create that story and, and it's not just the words himself, but it's the pace of the story. It's, it's, you know, we use video a lot in my presentation. So you have video, we have the multimedia, um use imagination, right? You wanna touch people's imagination. So I'm not just telling them something that it allows them to think about it. Right? As I heard somebody say, we have more information available than ever before in history, but less thinking and helping people think is one of the best things you can do. And so one of my goals when going into a presentation is how can I help somebody think? But one of the things I pick up on when speaking with people is, you know, we talk about the non verbal, right? When we talk about communication, but it's very real, right? There's things nonverbally and, and when you talk that talk about machine learning, how does machine learn how to pick up on a non verbal with somebody, you know, unless they have something that they can visually pick up on? Ok. A hand is raised. Ok. Well, that's literal. But how do you pick up on somebody's sitting differently or posturing differently or they're looking different places, right? Those are things that a machine cannot as of right now. Pick up on, that's where the human comes in, right? I can pick up on those things as I'm telling a story and say boy, I better pick up my pace. I better slow down the pace. I better change my story, right? Because I wanna still engage with this person. I want to see that neural coupling happening, right? This is an interesting word that um Kevin used that he said Frank's opposite at the end. And that's the uh you know, the end of the world was gonna be nostalgia. Yeah, that was interesting. But when you unpack that it makes a lot of sense because if we nostalgia obviously is things that have happened in the past, usually positive things that we remember from the past, right? That's good, nostalgia. If we hang on to those things, we don't move forward, we don't do change like a champion. So he's kind of saying what you do, but he was saying it in a different way. It's like if we hang on to the past, that will be the death of us. And I, and I agree with him. The problem is change can also be the death of us if we choose the wrong path to go down. Right? I mean, so it, it's, it's such a subtle ble, it's more subtle. It's, it's, it's, it, it's, it's an interesting blend that you have to really have that I think we talked about before the discernment to know which way to pivot, is it left or is it right? You know, and when in basketball you go to open space in soccer, you go open space, right. You go to where there's room for you to be able to, you know, live and succeed and achieve. Well, there's something I was, I, I didn't know if I was gonna bring it up or not, but I was thinking about it on my drive in today was that uh when I was playing basketball back in my days, back playing basketball, I used something called cybernetics and basically, it's visualization of actions, right? We call the basketball cyber cybernetics, but it could be any applied to anything and having that visualization of an action, having that visualization of success of that um was very important. And so to your point earlier, when you brought up about your story, Steve and being disconnected from your body, but it was the imagery and it was the uh story imagery that really connected to you, right? That, that really helped you continue to spew that content. Um To me, that's a major part of our imagination. It's a major part of storytelling. It's a major part of the psychology, right? And, and connecting that soul and connecting that imagination with that aspect of that vision. Your your imagination is the key part of storytelling. I mean, without our imagination, we don't tell stories as a matter of fact, without imagination, we don't get out of bed because I have to imagine I'm gonna go downstairs and make and make a nice omelet. Right. I got to imagine that before, before I do it. So I, I'm picturing what I want to do before I do it. So we're, we're storytelling to ourselves all the time, but we don't know it, but we do. And I'd like to imagine that this podcast is gonna benefit somebody somewhere. Oh, you're just imagining things. But you guys got me thinking. So there's a show I'm addicted to on youtube. It's called the Behavior Panel. And it's four guys that are uh a couple of them are uh formal special force, military uh interrogation, uh uh counter interrogation experts and a couple of them and they all work in corporate America, but they basically are uh experts in uh human behavior and uh human uh you know, human interaction. And so what they'll do is someone will say, hey, there's this uh murder case or a court case or something. Can you kind of break down? Like, is this person, are they telling the truth or like, you know what's going on? And they'll do like, very popular, like they did the Johnny Depp of Amanda Hurd and like, whatever, you know, whatever is popular and they basically show you the video and then they break it down, they break down the whole person's body language and really what it is, it's all pattern recognition and they're like, OK, you know, if they're doing this and this time this is what this demonstrates and what they always say is we establish a baseline. So to me, this is sort of like the mechanics of psychology, right? So we're always doing, we have as human beings, there's certain actions we do depending on our level of stress, our level of comfort, all the factors that make us human and what they do is they establish a baseline that says, OK, um in this type of situation, if they're doing that and they're doing it again and again, then we know it's probably like this and it's not an exact science, but it's so totally, totally fascinating to me. Like it, it's, is that it's that psychology of storytelling, but they're like breaking it down into human behavior, which I tell a story or is it honest? Right. You know? Right. Right. Because they're all, yeah, that everyone is, they're telling a story and it's like, OK, is this an authentic story or are you trying to, you know, what story are you telling? And for what reason? And is it authentic are you, you know, so I could bring this up right now too, Joe Joseph, is that uh when I was taking my master's degree in counseling, that there was a professor that talked about eye movement and literally, he couldn't predict whether somebody was thinking about something from the past, whether he was creating it based on the eye movement while telling that story, he could predict it and he'd call it out, he'd say, ok, this person before they even recognized it that OK, this person is bringing up something from the past or this person is making up something from a vision, uh some type of imagery that they have. And so it was very interesting just from the eye movement. That's what those guys do. They're like, if you, I guess if you look up to the right, you're accessing uh previous memory. If you do. So they know, you know, they have all this and they just point it all out and it's like these people don't even, you know, you have no control over it because it's the mechanics of the way the body and the brain real time. Yeah, for sure. So, what do we have control over today? I don't know. Hopefully a good as a storyteller. It's important to know that there are some mechanics, there's mechanics in the way you craft a story, there's mechanics in the way you communicate that story. And if you have a basic knowledge of those, you can make your story that much, that much better. I think the flip side is, is, you know, it's, it's, it's always about balance. You don't want it too organic or too mechanical and it's, it's, it's, and it's situational. That's kind of where I walk away with this. No, I agree. I mean, um stories, they, a lot of stories follow a pattern, right? Our brain loves, I think you said a pattern recognition. I mean, that's probably why we're able to remember numbers and you know, that type of thing and even rhythm, like in songs, our, our brain loves, you know, certain rhythms. But the to push the envelope on the creative side, you have to break out of those rhythms and that's when you end up having, you know, super cool stories. If not, you end up just fall, falling into the mold of, of any other story, but to be truly creative, you want to try and break the norm. And I believe that that's where A I is gonna have a hard time because it's using data sets and it's, you know, it doesn't have that, that soul and in a way it doesn't have that nostalgia, it doesn't have the moments in history where, you know, that it appreciates that it was alive. It doesn't have that right. So I'm not worried about it making better stories than what we as humans can be. Um That's, that's what I think. Yeah. And for me, you know, hearing Kevin speak about the, the journey in the future and I mean, even 10 years ago, what he was predicting and what he was talking about in one of the presentations, I saw that he literally understood that um imagination and, and to your point, soul is something that is gonna be very difficult to replace. Definitely. Right. And so we can, we can come up with content, we can come up with ideas, but the imagination and the soul of that is still gonna be lacking. And I don't know if that's ever gonna be in maybe in our lifetime. Who knows with A I how it's gonna happen. But it, it still is storytelling is so impactful and still powerful and understanding how powerful it can be even in this crazy world of A I right now that it's still very relevant for us, all of us. So I guess keep on telling your stories.

Welcome to the Chucklebucket - Comedy in Storytelling - BONUS CHRISTMAS EPISODE!

A great comedian is one who tells stories in a funny way, not to be confused with telling funny stories. Our guest on this BONUS episode is none other than Dave Coulier! Born and raised in Detroit, Dave is an actor, stand-up comedian, impressionist, and television host (and massive Detroit Red Wings fan). He was of course, Joey Gladstone on the ABC sitcom Full House, he's also voiced Peter Venkman on The Real Ghostbusters, and Animal and Bunsen on Muppet Babies, just to name a few of the many characters he's portrayed and voiced over his illustrious career. Folktellers Studios | Folktellers Universe [https://folktellers.com/] Dave Coulier [https://www.davecoulier.com/]   #StoryTelling #Comedy #FolkTellers #DaveCoulier #FullHouse #FunnyStories #StoriesToBeShared #FullHouse   Welcome everyone. Week 13, we call this episode a welcome to the Chuckle Bucket because we're talking about comedy in storytelling. Uh This is Joseph and I'm here with my enigmatic Stephen and the Stoic. What is this podcast, by the way, you didn't mention that? Oh, this is, uh, well, Steve calls this the bonus Christmas episode because for people that don't watch, uh, Steve is British and Canadian and American and people who don't watch British television, actually, their, uh, their season changes, the Christmas episode, unlike, right. So, uh I have a word for you today. What's that? You're a logo, file, a logo, file, logos is Greek for words, isn't it? You're someone that loves words. I do. So I had to look that up. I mean, you've been giving us words adjectives all the way through this series. So, you know, I actually took the time. Well, to search Google for like three seconds. Find that word for you. Well, I do my thank you. Um All right. So here's our, here's our quote. And by the way, uh we've got a, we've got a really cool guest for our bonus Christmas episode. Uh Dave uh comedian, actor pilot. Uh, he's, you'll be shocked when you hear all the things that he's into, uh, he's gonna be our guest on in a little bit. So, um, here's our opening. Um, this quote is a great comedian is one who tells stories in a funny way that is not to be confused with telling funny stories. And then the other piece is, this is the, the equation for comedy, comedy equals tragedy plus time. So, I, I will, I'll open with that. What do you guys, how does that make you feel? Yeah. The first thing that comes to mind to me is that sometimes it's too, it's, it's too close to the truth to be funny because of the timing. Yeah. Yeah. So you hear that? What's, what's that expression? Uh, oh, too soon. I think that's what, isn't that what they're referring to? Like, uh, not enough time has passed to make this funny, to make this funny? So, so that's where the math comes in, in the equation here, I guess with my engineering hat on, I'm looking at this and going, this is an equation interesting. What would you call, what would you call it? I know. I see a plus symbol. A sign. Well, you put them there. That doesn't make it. I didn't put them there. I guess that makes it come just the fact you're making this into an, that's, that's funny within itself. Here you go. What a way to start, what a way to start. Um OK, so I wanna, I wanna add on to this, so this idea of uh comedy Eagles tragedy plus time. Uh So, so sometimes the stories themselves can be funny but sometimes they're, they're actually heartbreaking stories with humor injected and that makes them more palatable that, which they otherwise would be too hard to hear. Do you think that's true? They use comedy for that? Like Shrek win? What do you mean by that? Well, Shrek, I mean, it's a sad story but I mean, there's comedy interjected all the way through it. Yeah, there's some depth ogres are like onions, layers, layers. Yeah, I think the biggest thing about comedy for me is it, it has to relate to where I'm at today, right? You talk about the timing of it. In other words, I could hear something that was funny. We, we were just talking about that. Actually, I had some college teammates, we got together the last couple of days and we were talking about things that were funny to us during college. We don't find as whimsical now, right? Or whimsical, whimsical now. And so uh so that even though as our lives change, that comedy might change as well, yeah, it's definitely timing is a key part to, to comedy, not just in the moment, but you know, in the era, right? There's lots of comedians like, like stuff that Eddie Murphy did many, many years ago that I used to just piss and now I look at it and it's like, well, yeah, it's not as funny as it was back then, but it was definitely funny in the day. So, so do you think your sense of humor changes with age? Absolutely. It does. Yeah. Yeah. In fact, it probably diminishes with age, I think sometimes. Right. I don't know if it's for you, Kurt, how has it, how has it changed? Yeah, I think for me, uh, it's become more sophisticated. Right. I'm not as, it, it, it doesn't take, uh, somebody farting for me to fall out of my chair now. I mean, yeah, I still chuckle a little bit but it's not as funny as it was wrong. I'm sorry? Yeah, you look at, uh, the blazing saddles. The scene around the campfire when the guys are eating beans and blazing saddles is funny and I still find that. Yeah. Yeah. There's still parts of it that are definitely. But again, timing too. Some of that is very controversial today than what it was. Well, you always have to fart at the right time. Not just the farting scene, but is there a wrong time? No, not really. Well, our audience, I think, yeah, if there are any women, they're like, you guys are disgusting. That's the other thing too. It's like when you're with women that's a bad time to far. Unless they're farting. I, I'll, I'll tell you what my there and then my, my far is not going well. This is my, this is my, like, fart scam, uh, dating far. What I would do is I'd open the door for my date and then I close the door and then I, when I walked around the car, that's when I let them all out because, you know, you had to like those all built up over the evening. Do you know what that is? What's that timing? It was timing. Here you go. It was a tragedy. You know, I'm starting to think that your formula is correct. Well, it was, it's not my formula. I can't take credit for it. Oh, my gosh. So, so Kurt, I guess farts still are funny. Certain parts. Yeah. Far. No pun intended. Oh my God. So, where do we all right. Where do you move from there? Yeah. Where do we? Well, everyone, we're so happy and excited to have, uh, Dave on with us. Good morning, Dave. Good morning. Is it morning everywhere? Um, it's what says that a Jimmy Buffett song, uh, it's morning somewhere or something. It's, it's somewhere, it's somewhere. Well, you're here with Joseph and Kurt and Steve. Then it is a good morning. Yes. Top of the morning to you, I'll start with the voices and then that was just to Tu of Dave because you're the expert. So, so for people that don't know, Dave Cooler that have been under a rock for 40 years. Uh Dave is not only an actor, a comedian but uh he has a bunch of secret talents like being a pilot and a home builder and, and many other things and Dave. So today we're talking about comedy in storytelling and we teed up, uh uh before you came on, uh the equation, I'm sure you've heard it before. That comedy equals tragedy plus time. Do you buy that? Do you think that's true or like as a, as a comedian? You know, what's your take on, on, uh comedy and storytelling? I never took any of those courses. You know, my joke is I, I didn't go to college. I couldn't find a parking spot. Um So, you know, comedy for me is a lot of the time listening because when I write jokes, I'll hear something and it, it kind of triggers something inside of me where I just try to turn that into a laugh. So for me, it's being very aware of your surroundings listening and to, to go back to your point. Uh I didn't have a tragic childhood but in some ways it was a disappointing childhood because I grew up very Catholic. I went to Catholic schools my entire life. Uh from second grade catechism to third grade through eighth grade in a, in a Catholic school. And then an all boys Catholic High school, Notre Dame High School in Detroit when I was, when I was nine years old, uh, everybody I knew was Catholic. And so, um, you know, I, with that in mind when my parents got divorced at nine, I was the only divorced kid. So I kind of carried around this banner of, you know, banner of shame. Yeah, it was, it was guilt and it was guilt and shame and every other thing that, you know, that you're supposed to feel at that moment. So, for me that's when I got funny and I gravitated towards a hockey locker room where there was a built in audience. I gravitated towards funny kids. My friend Mark Sands and at that point, I just really started to devour comedy. So, so to, to talk to your point, Joseph, it's, it, it is rooted somewhat in tragedy for me and it was overcoming the sadness that I felt when I was home. Hey, Dave, this is Kurt and, and having grown up 12 years of Catholic education myself, I just wondered how the nuns and the priests handled that when, when that came out at age of nine for you. Well, um, you know, it's funny because when I was, um, you know, doing sound effects and voices and stuff, the, the priests and the nuns all and my teachers all called it noises and then, and then, and I was very disruptive and, you know, then when they would come to my shows later on when I started doing stand up, oh, my gosh. You were such a funny kid. Those sound effects you did. Suddenly the complexion of who I was as a child completely changed. Once there was an audience you were a professional at doing it now. Yeah. At that point it's funny. Yeah. That's actually really interesting. Actually I grew up Catholic too and I found out that sort of, that repressive um, environment, uh, really lent itself to elevating uh, the, the humor, like, like, you know, if you were, if you were at mass, like, just, just like the worst place. But what about the Catholic girls? What about them? Well, the Catholic girls were always the rat girls. The public school were always the kind of the tame calm girls. So, you know, I went to an all boys Catholic high school and right next to Notre Dame was Regina high school and, you know, they were mooning more than guys. It's easy with the short skirts, I guess. And back to the back to the repression, you know, you put that kind of pressure on a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Something's going to squeeze out the side that it reminds me of, uh reminds me of Gary Shandling's joke. He would go on stage and he'd say this is a dress shirt, but I wear it with pants all the time. So I, you know, I was thinking like we, when we've talked before, so you moved from like sort of you used comedy and and, and storytelling and, and characters and, and, and doing voices, uh, from a, from a tragic moment in your life. But then you, you know, you made a, you made a living at it. And what I found really interesting when you were talking to us before is how you really sort of codified that into like that you actually have to write because I think a lot of people when they see a comedian up there, uh, telling stories and telling jokes, um, that it, it, it feels very like they just made it up on the fly when actually, you know, you've prepared. Um, I mean, there's like a whole rhythm. I think you, Dave, when we were talking before, you compared it to, to like a jazz performance. But how did, so how did you move from sort of this innate organic, uh, uh, abilities into making a living at it? Well, I, I, um, I didn't know it at the time but I was focused and I was really focused on how do I do what I'm listening to on records and seeing on television? I, I was watching stand ups and I thought, how do I, how do I make that transition from? I'm a funny guy in the locker room to, I want to be the funny guy on a stage in front of 1000 people. And so there wasn't comedy college. So he went to a, you know, college prep high school. I remember going to the counselor that senior year and they would just go Dave, I don't even know what to tell you. And I, and, you know, and at that point I had already been doing shows in the cafeteria and, and on stage and, and so, and I, and I had a great partner, a couple of partners in crime and we used to call ourselves the Three Stooges. And there was two guys named Mark San Drowsy and Tom Keenan. And we were the Three Stooges and we would do shows and, and hearing those laughs in high school, we put together a whole two hour program at the, at the Regina stage next door and it sold out like 800 people came to this show that we, that we promoted ourselves. And it was just because I had this focus of how do I become a professional funny person. And there really wasn't anyone I could talk to. There really wasn't anything that I could gravitate towards. I, I drove my car when I was 17 to Chicago and I snuck into second City and a bunch of comedy clubs there. And so I was just searching and, and I had to do it by myself. And then miraculously, the Comedy Castle opened in Detroit and I was 18. And suddenly it was, if the, you know, the, the Pearly Gates opened and I suddenly had a canvas to paint on and there were other young comedians there. And for me, that was Comedy College, that was suddenly getting a forum where I could just try things. And it was, it was incredible because I had this, this support system of guys, Tim Allen and Mark Ridley, who owned the Comedy Castle and other young comedians who were trying to do the same thing. I was so suddenly, um, everything that I thought in my head about the possibilities of being professional came true. Well, and, and Dave, you know, you talk about that era that you were coming through there with Mark's Place there, what, you know, you think about some of the other names, right on top of yours. And that you mentioned Tim Allen, who, who was your idol at that time? Did you have an idol at that time? And who was it that you were trying to emulate? Well, originally I gravitated towards Jackie Gleason because I thought he was so funny as a physical comedian and an actor. And so Jackie Gleason was my favorite. And then I started listening to albums and I gravitated towards George Carlin, but I didn't have his acerbic wit. I just, I just marveled at how he was such an incredible wordsmith about, you know, uh politics and, you know, he was right on the pulse of what was happening politically and, you know, socially and so that, you know, was a bit of an influence, even though I knew he couldn't be that ever. Um And then when Steve Martin and Robin William Williams burst onto the scene, I realized that doing voices and characters and wearing a funny balloon on your head was all in the realm of possibility. So I was doing characters and voices and, and music and suddenly I thought, wow, this is, uh, this is the new frontier. And so, um, you know, like every kid my age, I listened to Cosby and I was blown away by Richard Pryor. And, um, you know, I would listen to Monty Python and, and I used to watch Monty Python's Flying Circus at 11 30 at night um during high school. So there were all of these things that I searched for and I started to kind of mold who I could possibly be. So, Dave, I mean, obviously a lot of people know you uh from full house that when I met you, uh the thing that interested me the most is how multifaceted that you are. Um And also like you, you really kind of move, you really like tech, which kind of blew my mind, right? And everyone thinks, oh, he's just a comedian but you're not, I mean, you're a pilot and you do many other things that probably a lot, a lot of people don't know that you do. But my question is like, what gravitates you towards those other things like tech. It's um having a right brain and a left brain that are in constant conflict with each other and, and, you know, as much as I love creativity, I love the creativity that goes into technical as well. It's all about creating, it's all about possibilities and, and I've always thought those things out, what are the possibilities. And when I got my first IBM computer and you had to, you had to basically write dots and C++ if you wanted anything cool to come out, spit out of it. That's for sure. I, I really thought, wow, this is just a whole different creative dimension. And you know, my dad flew and my son's a pilot for fedex and, and I flew and I still fly and I always loved the mathematical equations that could bring you into this extremely creative world of I can go anywhere I want in a 3d space. So, so, so my right brain connected with my left brain, but it was all about the creative options that both of those hemispheres, you know, uh Good support, Dave, like how does all this roll back into comedy and into storytelling? So clearly, you're a creator and you're using both sides of your brain. Um Like we've talked throughout this entire podcast about the different facets and applications of, of storytelling and, and you really are so much more um than just a, just a comedian. So how do you like in your life if you view, you know, the life and the way you communicate um as storytelling or like, what's your, you know, what's your perspective on that? Well, like a great song, people will always sit and listen to a great story over and over and over again. And, you know, you can go back through the history of all time and you will listen to a story each time, even though you know, the beginning in the middle of the end, you still are going to listen to that fascinating story. And so, you know, what I do is, um there is no different than, you know, writing a book. I'm just writing a book that gets laughs for an hour. So, so that's with stand up. And when I write a TV show or movies or right now, I'm in the middle of um selling an animated series that I created um called Yum Yum and, and it's, it's for little kids, it's for five year olds. And so yesterday we pitched to um uh Christopher Updike at, at um the Peacock Network. And, and so, you know, I have to get into my five year old brain, but it's, it's still telling a story for a five year old and, and, you know, it's, it, it all, you know, is, is encompassed by my own professional immaturity. Um It sounds like a little fun sometimes getting into our five year old brain, professional immaturity. Well, some are in it all the time. Yeah, I just, I just, you know, I've always told people I, I don't want to grow up because I'll be out of a job. Right. And, and so, you know, when we talk about, you know, the right and left hemisphere of my brain, my wife will tell you, I don't think he has a brain because somewhere in the middle, the way, not the way he acts at home. You know, and it's like, because I'm, I'm immature, you know, but that's what fuels me. You know, if I, I can't see someone bend over without thinking about making a fart sound. There we go. You stick a fork in the crack or something. You didn't hear the beginning of the podcast. It was all fart joke. Yeah. Kurt Kurt said, uh, farts aren't funny anymore and we, no, no, no. Wait a minute. I didn't say as funny as funny. Ok. And we, we, we strongly disagreed. Hey, Dave, I got a question. Is that as spelled a ss, the farts are as funny as funny. Dave. I got a question of all the titles. I mean, I've heard the title comedian, uh, obviously pilot, um, you know, creator. Which one of those resonates? How do you identify yourself? You're missing the key one, which is hockey player, hockey player. Yeah. In Dave's mind. What? That's, that's the only one I worry about. What is it that you identify as yourself? What you, you like? Don't go there, don't go there. I love, I love chocolate. So I'm a Hershey. That was Sao joke. I, I'm gonna tell you just, just because I love Bob so much and how irreverent and, and silly and stupid he was, he would sing a song and he goes, sometimes I feel like a nut sometimes you don't, I've got two big nuts. My mom don't. That was from his dad. That was from his, um, you know, I, I identify just, you know, um, Steve when you, when you mention hockey, hockey, to me again, is creativity on the ice because it's so fluid and, and improvisational and it's constantly changing and you get to be, if you have the puck, you get to be creative with the puck and even if you don't have the puck, you get to do something creative to where you have the possibility of receiving the puck. So to me that fluidity of hockey is, is creativity and, you know, it's, you know, it's the only sport that I've ever played where you get to experience that kind of creativity and adrenaline, especially, especially at high speeds. Yeah. Which I don't experience anymore. It's all relative. Yeah, I'm, I'm looking for the drop pass going both ways now. It seems like. Um, so, so I, as far as identifying, I love, I'm like the guy on the Ed Sullivan show, I love spinning all those different plates and keeping them going. That's what, that's what drives me and that's what fuels me and, and, you know, I, I wanted to build our, our home, which we're building now here in, in Michigan. My wife and I, how's that going? Um It's, it's, you know, juggling contractors is like juggling cats. They just land everywhere and are never where you think they're gonna be. And, and, you know, uh, I've heard every, the dog ate my homework story. Um, you know, so it's, it's a challenge working with so many people. I liken it to when I'm directing a TV show because the plans are the script. But man, sometimes you have some really shitty actors and, and sometimes, you know, when you're building a house, that's the case where you just have to go. Well, we still have to do the show. Um You know, some of the actors aren't going to be as strong as our star. But you know, you do find those stars and, and get the house built, you know, but um iii, I enjoy doing lots of different things that, that's what fuels me. So I could never, I, I think probably stand up is my favorite thing because it's live and you get to hear the instant feedback for something you wrote earlier in the day and it's such gratification. Well, if you want some more practice juggling cats, you can come over to my place anytime. So jeez, we got lots of them. Hey, Dave, I got a question for you. You know, we talk about stories on this uh podcast here and, and obviously yours has been AAA journey. How, how do you, how do you see this journey continuing or, or um I don't wanna say ending because I don't ever want to see it end for you. But what, what do you see this story for you? Creator director? Yeah. What, what is it that your journey for your journey? Uh I don't know, I, I honestly don't know, you know, um life is like being in an improv class, you know, it's like sometimes you're gonna get rewarded with a laugh and you'll be able to finish the scene and other times you have to scurry off stage so somebody else can get up there, you know. So I, I really don't know. I know that it gets more and more exciting, the more with the more history that I had behind me. And I think being able to, to look back and say, wow, I have a real history here. Um I get to enjoy it all over again. I'm, I'm doing a podcast called Full House Rewind. And um we're standing down for the moment to support our fellow um uh S A and uh A a and WG A um you know, our, our unions. So, um but I get to relive all 192 Full House episodes of which I've, I've never watched the show. So for me, it's like going back in time and seeing this 27 year old comedian become an actor on national television. So I get to kind of look at myself and go, oh, that kid was kind of funny. That's pretty cool. So, it's so, it's a, it's a journey that I get to look both ways now and, and, um, I don't know what the forward journey is gonna be like. And to me that's really exciting. I know that terrifies a lot of people, but for me, I don't know if I'm going to get a phone call later today. You know, people saying, hey, were you on the Folk Tellers podcast? Man? I wanna, I want you to be the head of General Motors. It's a usual transition for our guest, isn't it? Yeah. So it's exciting both ways now, you know, and it's, and it's, um, it's really quite lovely that I, that I get to experience this. Hey, so Dave, you know, I heard you mention 100 and 92 shows, a full house and you've not watched one. Is that correct? That is correct. Yeah, I, I would see little snippets of myself, but it would be once the show was in syndication and I'd be walking through an airport and I'd hear my own voice and look over at a monitor and go, wow, that's a really bad haircut and even worse outfit. And so that, why, why is that, that you had a hard time watching? Well, because when we were airing, we were shooting and I never had time to and I was also, I was also hosting America's Funniest people on ABC. And then I was also recording the real Ghostbusters cartoon for ABC and the Muppet Babies cartoon for CBS. And, and then I was also trying to do stand up because it was, you know, everybody told me, you know, stand ups who I really respected guys like Robin Williams, you know, would say stuff like grab the fucking money now. And, you know, and, and I was, I, you know, I was, I was like, you know, going out, I was playing Pine Knob in Detroit, played there three times. I, you know, was playing big theaters, you know, 10,000 cedars. And, um, you know, that was really exciting. I was exhausted jumping up on the stage after, you know, working on my shows. But, you know, uh everything kind of also ended at the same time. Full House America's Funniest people. Muppet Babies and Ghostbusters all got canceled the same season. And so there I was just going, ok, well, that was a hell of a roller coaster ride. Now. What? And so I was never really interested in watching Full House because I was on, you know, I was moving forward of, ok, what do I do now? That, that's behind me. That was great. But then Full House kind of had a cumulative effect in my life where it just kept catching up with me because of the popularity of the show and syndication. And then Fuller House came back and, and I just thought, well, it's never gonna get better than that. So let's embrace it. And I thought the best way to embrace it is to talk about it on a podcast. Well, Dave, we appreciate you coming on today. And, um, before you go, I have to ask from a, to storytelling perspective not to put you on the spot, but like, what's your, what's your like one of your go to stories that you know, is gonna kill, whether it's a joke or a story that's gonna kind of kill every time long or short. What's your, what's one of your go tos? Well, uh, I have a bunch of them, uh, because I do have that history that I talked about earlier. Uh, one of my great thrills was being able to go up in an F-18 with the Blue Angels. And, um, I got to fly my airplane out in California to El Centro where they were practicing the Blue Angels show. And so I flew out there and, um, when I got into their airspace 2 F-18s, uh, saddled up next to me and escorted me down to where I was landing and when I was landing, they both peeled away with full after burners and it was really loud even through the drone of my, my, uh power plant on my bonanza. And so it was a huge thrill for me, but then I still had to take this, this ride. And so they told me the night before, don't eat, just don't eat. Ok. I'm like water and they're like, yes, water is, is ok. But don't eat the night before and don't eat the next morning. I was like, oh, ok. So I'm like, hm, I guess the words vomit comet really? You know, start this. So I got there to the base and the, and the navy people were unbelievable. The blue angel team were, were just, you know, above and beyond my greatest expectations. And then for three hours, they pretty much programmed me and took me through what was gonna, what I was gonna experience on my, my flight. And so by the time they, you know, ran me through this, I was so hungry and I was feeling like I was hypoglycemic and, and so much expectation and adrenaline and they show me this hook maneuver and they said, you know, when the pilot says, stand by, stand by and then hook on the second standby grunt as hard as you can because you're not going to be wearing a G suit and you're gonna try and keep the blood from, you know, going out to your extremities. And so I practiced my hook maneuver and then got in the plane and my pilot had never given a VIP ride. They call it before and his nickname was hoops because he was the tallest pilot that they'd ever had in their squadron and he was good at basketball. So I climb in with hoops and he's sitting in front of me. Um, I'm in the back seat and, um, we take off and, you know, we're rolling out 100 and 60 knots. And he says, all right, Dave, um, stand by, stand by hook and he, and I didn't catch the hook maneuver properly and we went straight up with full after burner and I woke up when we were upside down over the field and he said, oh, you want to sleep there, Dave you good. And I'm like, yes, I'm good. And so then he goes, ok, let's go enjoy your ride. And I thought, oh, no, I passed out on the first maneuver I hadn't done for. So I passed out a bunch of times and, um, you know, I was upside down at one point and for some reason I thought, I think I have to crap my pants. You, you should have, you should have been wearing your G string. Exactly. Exactly. To, to combat the G forces that I was feeling in my pants. So I'm upside down and all I could think the comedian comes out of me as my body is in total panic mode. And I'm upside down and I thought if I crap right now I'm upside down, it's going to go into my own face and all I could think of was maybe this is where the phrase shit face came from. And so that was, that was my ride. And, um, they, uh, beat me up so badly. Hoops beat me up so badly. They reviewed the cockpit footage that they had of me and the lieutenant of the squadron said, Dave, look, hoops beat you up pretty bad. We looked at the footage, if we can convince you to stay overnight, we'll give you a better ride tomorrow. So I actually, by passing out as much as I did, uh, got me two rides and instead of just one and where is that footage? Now? Uh, that was classified. I said, can I watch it? And they said no, it's, did you actually poop? That's what I'm, I know. II I didn't, I didn't, I didn't poop but man, did I blow a Navy seal. But, um, oh my God, it's all back to poop. I, sorry, that was beautiful. That was, be a beautiful way to, to wrap up our interview with Dave. Dave. Where can, uh, people learn more about your adventures and all the things that you're doing? Uh, they can just go to my website. It's my name dot com or, um, you know, if you want to hear, uh, my podcast is a TV show so you can watch it on youtube just, uh, you know, Search for Full House rewind and our first episode is pretty fascinating. You'll hear some stuff that you've never heard about. Full House as I interview the creator of Full House Jeff Franklin. Cool. Excellent. Well, Dave, thanks again for being on. It's always a joy and a pleasure and a laugh to uh to speak with you and to and to have you in our presence. So, thank you so much. Thank you. I thank the world to you guys and um you know, thanks for having me. All right, take care. We'll talk to you soon. Take care. Bye bye questions here. So, um uh Dave did not disappoint. Uh No, so we got into sort of the craft of a little bit of comedy and then the crap of comedy. Um So let's talk a little bit about the, the storytelling piece of it. Um In your guys' mind what, what kind of stories make for the best comedy I I think for me it's real, right? It's gotta be real like the stories he tells and the story he told at the end, especially about. Uh it's very real, right? It's, it's taking a life experience and making that chemical in my opinion. What, why, what, why do you think it has to be real? To me, it doesn't have to be real, but to me it, it makes it funny to understand this is a comedy in that situation. Uh You know, I I can't help but think about Seinfeld, right? This is a show about nothing. And so he takes nothing, he takes situations in life and makes him funny. I would say the reality piece grounds it. I mean, ii, I agree with you, Steve. What do you think? It, it's like the, the gentle poke at societal norms. I mean, George Carlin was gentle. Yeah, it wasn't very gentle. No, he wasn't gentle. But, uh, you know, it is, those, those pokes at those norms. Right. Uh, those definitely make for comedy. Um, but that's a timing thing too. I mean, it can be not sensitive if it's not done in the right time frame. Right. So, so that's a good point. So, um, what kind of storytelling do you think doesn't fit a come? When does, when does it, uh, ring poorly, like, or poorly executed comedic story in your mind? Yeah. I think in, in my opinion, it's, it's when the tragedy is, is I don't wanna say too big but it's, it's like, oh, it's not really funny because, you know, eight people died or these Children were whatever happened to these Children. And, yeah, when, when it's something too tragic, I think that takes away from the comedy of it. I mean, can we, can we have a, a different viewpoint about it? Sure. But when you're trying to make something as tragic as a huge event, um, in my opinion, especially if it's a sensitive thing, Children, uh, you know, things of that sort in my opinion, but there's certain genres that are very hard to put comedy into like science fiction, for example, it's hard to do that. Um Irwin Allen was an expert at it lost in space and a lot of those other things that he did, uh, even Paul Verhoeven, I mean, I, I've mentioned, you know, total recall once before, which I'm not supposed to mention. But, uh, but that movie has comedy in it and that's hard to do in, in dealing with those types of themes, especially science fiction and things. So and so it's, it, it, it's very hard to do in, in, you know, that type of stuff and stories. But what, what, what it really impressed me about Dave though was how everything he's experienced his whole journey, his story and yet how grounded he is. In fact, I, I didn't get a chance. I wanted to ask him about that. If what grounds you, what, what keeps you, your feet on the ground when you have your head in this class like this, this plane? Yeah. Yeah. Playing hockey perhaps. I mean, he love, I, I like II, I spoke to him in length about hockey and he loves hockey and uh he's so right about, you know, you, you played a lot of sports, it is the creativity of the game and how things you know, change directly in real time in front of you. That's why we keep playing sports like that. But um, he also gets to play with all his buddies, all the kids that he grew up with, he's, uh, I think he plays on the same line now that he did with, with one of his friends that, uh, he went to high school. It says a lot right there. Yes, he's, he's, um, he's grounded, very grounded with his friends and family. That's why he move back here. He said, I think, um, you know, coming back to where you grew up and having friends and family around you and you're in the same geography now, um, that has a gravitational pull, I think. But what, what do you think about your question? How do you answer your question? What was my question? I don't know, that was a while ago about one thing about when, uh was it, uh the storytelling when comedy is not when it doesn't ring true. Uh Well, I think in this day and age you've got to be, I remember Will Ferrell saying, uh, um, true comedians are fearless, like fearless in what they say and what they do. And I think it's very hard um, nowadays to be that type of fearless comedian because, you know, everyone's so hypersensitive and, um about, about whatever and, you know, we don't need to go down that rabbit hole. But, um, I, I think a modern comedian that's probably the biggest challenge is all of a sudden, you know, and for comedians in, in the, in the construct of comedy, nothing should be taboo to talk about. It's a joke. And you hear the comedian say, I'm telling jokes up here, I'm telling a funny story. And uh it's supposed to be provocative. What people don't realize is, um, in tradition, the, the comedian, the fool was the truth teller and they got away with it. They could say it to the king because they told it as a joke without getting their heads chopped without getting their heads chopped off. So, and like, and in Shakespeare, the only one who told the truth was the fool and nobody listened to the fool. So even the tradition of comedy is the tradition of truth telling in a, in a funny entertaining way. But it's a high risk geek. It's social media that's changed that today because whatever is trending today could actually make things something funny or not funny. That's how timing affects that formula that you put in. I mean, it's, it's really totally different times to your point. It is harder to now today to do something to make it funny because you have to be, especially if there's money attached to it, like he said, chasing the money, right? If there's money attached to it and you offend somebody or somebody gets upset and they are writing the check, it changes everything and you're canceled, correct? Yeah, I mean, Dave came up at a time. What, what people who are, aren't as old as we are. What they don't realize is, you know, back before Comedy Central, which came out, I think it was mid eighties, maybe, um, cable television. And there was a renaissance of stand up comedy before that. It was like, kind of like, you know, the, the nightclub comedy, like the comedians, uh, from the fifties and sixties and you'd see on Ed Sullivan and then there was like, there wasn't that in the seventies but into the eighties, uh there was a whole renaissance of stand up stand up comedians and comedy. That's when Dave came in. So he came in at a really, really a really good time. Um But now, you know, I think it's a lot harder, um, trying to be funny on youtube. Yeah, or in a podcast with what I, what I appreciate about Dave is because we all remember the class clowns, so to speak, you know, infamous class clowns growing up. And what, what was neat about hearing Dave's story is how he talked about. I, I did it purposely, I saw what was happening and I thought, boy, I wanna do this for a living. I want to do this because I love it. Uh He did the homework, he put the work in, he put the grind in to be able to continue that. I mean, I think about some of the class clowns that I grew up with and I'm like, well, where are they now? And what are they doing? I see them on Facebook all the time. And I wrote to myself, those guys are pretty funny, you know. But they, they just didn't get the opportunity. They didn't put the work in. That's it. Exactly. Like you hear, you hear if you step back from Dave's story, so his comedic chops were honed on a tragic event in his childhood. But so he had that sort of innate creativity and he's a creator. So he had the, he had the, the chops, but he also had the work ethic and the passion to say, I wanna, you know, I wanna do this for a living. I wanna, you know, I want to make a living at this and it's that balance like, and, you know, he was talking about the right side, left side of his brain and he's so interested in so many things. But the reason he's successful is because he has the balance between the vision and the creativity and then the work ethic and the ability to like codify II, I remember Dave saying to us uh something before when we had a breakfast with him um about what his father said, you know, it's like he didn't really understand the work that went into what Dave was doing. It's like, oh, you just get paid for telling jokes and that, right? But the fact of the matter is, it's not, it wasn't that easy. I mean, it's not that easy. If you're gonna record that many shows, that's why he didn't watch all those shows. He didn't have any time. He's, he's working on the next, on the next thing he's not sitting on, you know, sitting on cable or back then it probably be antenna. All right, good one guys. Thank you.

A Thousand Words – the Power of Pictures, Paint and Visual Storytelling

How do images add or take away from a written story? What is Visual Literacy in the Modern World? What is the future of art in visual storytelling? Our guest is Patrick McEvoy - an artist working in comics, illustration and multimedia animation, working professionally for over 25 years. "In terms of genre, I've done Fantasy, SF, horror, and educational work (for ages ranging from kids to high school to college)." "In the past I have worked on contract with Marvel, doing dozens of pictures for the Marvel Style Guide, lots of advertising, and other behind-the-scenes art. And you may have seen my work on a lot of game art, such as Arkham Horror, Call of Cthulhu, Warcraft CCG, Legend of the Five rings, and even about 100 cards for the Game of Thrones CCG."   Folktellers Studios | Folktellers Universe [https://folktellers.com/]   #Storytelling #Folktellers #Stories #PatrickMcEvoy #VisualStorytelling   Well, welcome everyone to the folk tellers stories to be shared podcast. It's week 11 and we're talking about 1000 words, the power of pictures, paint and visual storytelling. And I wanted to, uh, before I warm everyone up with our little thoughts for the day, let's introduce my compatriots. We have the stunning Steve Sadler. Oh, I like that word. Do you know why? Because I understand that word and the uh incomparable, that's good. There's two words we can understand and you can feel good about yourself. So I appreciate it. I just can't believe this has been a week 11 now. I mean, that's unbelievable, but it's a good thing. They say time flies and having fun, but it's still fun. We're still having fun. That's what I'm saying. This is work and this is, this is a conundrum. This is a OK. All right. So here we are week 11, we're talking about visual storytelling power of pictures. Um We're gonna have uh Patrick mcavoy on a little bit in a little bit. Um Patrick's a uh incredible artist. He does a lot of work for folk tellers and he's a big fan of Jack Kirby and people don't know who Jack Kirby is. Jack Kirby was um the Marvel artist who came up with all the biggies. He came up with the Hulk and Spiderman. And you know, it's funny, people always think Stan Lee. Stan Lee wasn't an artist. He was a writer. Uh Jack Kirby was the one who came up with, with the, the look, the, that the Marvel look. So one of the things Jack Kirby said was says, I achieve perfection. My type of perfection through visual storytelling, storytelling was my style. And then I've got another quote here. It says um this is Anthony Demelo. Um He's a uh he, I think he's actually a priest and uh uh he's a famous storyteller speaker. Um You have to understand that the shortest distance between a human being and the truth is a story. So those are our two icebreakers, gentlemen. Like, so one of the first big questions is we're gonna get into visual storytelling. So to you, what, what do you think visual storytelling is? I leave the floor open. Well, uh an image is 1000 words, right? Yeah. Pick a picture or a picture is 1000 words. I don't know what, what is the the exact phrase we're supposed to be a picture is worth 1000 words or an image, right? Or an image, right? Well, we, we're in digital today. What does that mean? We'll, we'll use image because what, what what does that really mean? Is that true or is that just a absolutely sure it is. I could look at an image and, and pull a lot of context out of that image just by looking at it just like I can if I'm driving my car down the road, I mean, that's an image that or, you know, or a picture that I'm looking at, right as I'm driving and uh and I'm pulling that story out of it. So, yeah, definitely without, without words. So from an audience perspective, and this is what, what, what I found as, as a writer, um as a writer, what I've chosen or what's been put upon me is the uh the craft that takes the longest to engage with uh where visual media, it's instantaneous, like music like you hear, you hear a couple notes or you see something visually. Um There's an immediate response reaction and either rejection or engagement where in writing it's like you have to read it, you have to process it and then you have to reflect on it before you're really engaging with it. So it's a, it's a much longer process. So, Kurt, what's your take? Yeah, for me, you've brought up music it because we did a couple of episodes uh or a couple of episodes ago, we talked about music. To me, it's the lyrics and, and the melody coming together. That's where the story with the visuals come together, right? It's like the music has the melody line, but then you have the lyrics that match it with, with the vision part of it. To me it's a, it's a, I have to see the vision match the narrative. In other words, I could have this story. But when I see an image that attaches to it, oh my God, you, you know, you brought up about Marvel, I mean, think about the imagery of those characters that are part of the story, part of the narrative. That's the powerful part of it. I mean, I can look at an image from Marvel and say, oh yeah, I know exactly who that is without knowing a story without seeing the story. Then why do people say I saw the movie and the book was better? Why do you think that's such a common statement? My daughter is a big reader. I mean, she's the kind of person that could actually pick up like a Harry novel, Harry Potter. Harry novel. It was a slip there, a Harry Potter novel and she can literally read that book in a day. I could, I could never do that. It would take me a month to read every time that she sees the movie. She goes, well, that's not as good as the book. And I'm like, well, why isn't it? She goes because in her mind, you're, you're, you create a mental picture while you're reading and many times it's better than what they can ever come up with in Hollywood. Well, I think part of it too is just simple length. Right. You have a 500 page novel like that. Right. There, much more detail can be gotten into and as opposed to a 60 90 you know, even a three hour movie. Right. There's only so much time you have for that. Yeah. There, there's greater constraints from a production standpoint, I think on, on doing a feature film, you know, you've got, yeah, you've got 90 minutes or, or whatever, whatever the standard is. So if they're adapting from a book, you know, a book, you just can keep writing more pages, you know, more series. Yeah. So, yeah, I think, I think that's one of the challenges uh in that there's, there's more constraints so the book can have more, usually has more detail to it, especially JK Rawlings. I mean, she is very detailed in her stories. Yes. Right to the, you know, the color of the wood and the texture of the door handles and stuff like that. So that's a good point, Stephen, because the visual doesn't necessarily have to be an actual visual. It could be something created in our mind from reading that it's a, it's a mental picture that, that you're making. But when we talk to Patrick, you're, you're gonna understand how his mind works because that's literally what Joseph and I do for him. We give him that mental picture and he converts it into the beautiful art that he's been doing for many, many years. He's just absolutely incredible. So you guys, we have our friend and another compatriot, our art director extraordinaire, uh Patrick mcilroy. So a little background on Patrick, uh he will not tell you this himself, but he's done a ton of work for Marvel and Disney and Sony. And he, I mean, he really is a, a incredibly, not only a talented artist but a visual designer and a visual storyteller himself. So, uh Patrick, great to have you on. Well, great to be here. Thanks. Uh Yeah, if you uh ever want me to blow my own horn, I, I am happy to, oh, well, by the time we're done, it's better when someone else gets the ball rolling for me. Now, you've just created a visual story for all of us of you blowing your own horn. Um But we won't go down that rabbit hole. So Patrick, we're talking about, we're talking about visual storytelling. So I wanna, I wanna tee this up with you because you are uh now the resident of visual storytelling expert and Patrick, what we were talking about was um how uh visual storytelling, visuals and, and art and all that stuff gives you like music. When you see it, it's an immediate engagement or rejection. Uh But uh you have an immediate uh you know, visceral reaction, whether it's looking at a piece of art, whether it's going to film, uh watching a film or uh versus, you know, versus writing. And so the way Patrick and I met was, I was looking for uh folk tellers for the visual, what, what this universe would look like. And I had kind of an idea in my head, but I ended up, I interviewed 100 and 50 different artists and then um someone who I worked with on the, on in my professional work, uh a colleague said, hey, I got a friend I grew up with uh who does, you know, he does drawing. And I was like, oh OK. And uh so it totally undersold Patrick. But then he's like, yeah, go to his website and I looked at stuff I was like, wow, this is really, really good. And then Patrick and I, we got on the phone and that was, I believe Patrick, that was the, the rouge, the graphic novel project that we started with. So that was the whole the Red Dwarf project. And so I said, well, the way I work is you need to read my work first and come back and kind of summarize retell me the story because I caught listening for the echo. I'll know if he gets like the, the heart of what I'm getting at in, in the story that I'm telling. So he read it, he came back, he got it and uh you know, did a couple comps and it was just incredible and we've been working, I mean, it's, it's pushing 10 years now that we've been working together. Um And so, and, you know, it was Patrick's artwork that Steve saw in the investor in the investor meeting. That was like, yeah, you got something. He hadn't even read the stories. It was the artwork that sold it. Don't you think Steve or a big part of it? That was a part of it? Yeah. But I mean, you obviously have to be able to stitch together all of the artwork together to be able to tell the story. It wasn't just one image, but I'll let uh Patrick tell that. Yeah. So Patrick, so go ahead, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, you up now. So as the visual storyteller, you know, you came into our world, what is your take on uh telling stories through uh through uh images? Well, it's uh well, first of all, it's great to be a part of the group. I love, uh I love being uh on, on this team because uh I think everybody's really motivated to uh to tell good stories and to create a positive entertainment, you know, things that are uh gonna make a difference. So, you know, just to start off, I love, love being a part of all that. Um We, yeah, we do. Uh Thanks uh as for myself, you know, my earliest professional artistic work was in uh what they used to call edutainment. So I've always been, uh, a big, uh, proponent of, uh, you know, stuff that, uh, educates entertains. Uh, it puts good stuff out into the world and, and it's, and it's not just decoration, it's not just entertainment but it's something that, that's positive on several levels. And I think that's probably something that I really, uh, attached on to quickly, you know, working with JB and reading that first, uh, Rouge book that I did was Patrick a lot, a lot of history and a lot of uh uh uh a lot of how people interact with their history and how that all works together. Absolutely. Your background is fascinating to me. So, I don't know. A lot of people don't know this but you have a background in music and you did a lot with uh computers and computer program, didn't you? I have a very circuitous route that got me to worry. Yeah. What is, so, what's that journey? Well, how did you get to the point where now you're artist extraordinaire? Uh uh Well, thanks. Well, let I, I started uh when I was, uh you know, a kid, uh I had lots of different interests. Uh Basically everything except mathematics. That was my one, but I'm still not very good at. So don't ask me to work out the tip. Um But uh when I got to college, you know, I was still doing music. I was in, you know, bands and I did a lot of, uh you know, at that age, I was uh being hired by uh recording studios just as a pickup artist, you know, to do commercials and things like that. So I was keeping my hand in music, but I was an art major and uh I didn't really understand at that point, the difference between the fine arts and illustration and what I didn't really know was I was far more cut out to do illustration than, than why is that? Well, it's a whole different world in, in illustration, you're telling a story, which as it turned out is, is really something very important to me and the fine arts especially then I think it may have changed. Now, the fine arts was really only uh geared towards explaining your concept. You know, you, you do something meaningless, you know, decorating a canvas and your job as the artist was to sort of justify what you'd done and sell it to a gallery based on that. Uh And I, I quickly became really disenchanted with that entire world and, you know, that I took some good classes, a lot of life drawing and, and things like that. But I, I kind of learned it wasn't what you were drawing, it was why you were drawing it. And that didn't, didn't sit well with me. I just, I wanted to do pictures that, that told a story. And so I dropped out of that program and became a music major for my next couple of years and, you know, learned a lot of uh uh uh learned, I learned a lot about different uh musical techniques. A lot about uh writing music that I hadn't known. So it was nice to get in, you know, get, get an advanced education in that. But as it turned out, as soon as I left college, uh I took a job where they were putting a computer system in, this was back in the eighties, the early days of computing. And, uh, I kind of my way into the computer department and just taught myself how to program. And next thing I knew I had a 10 year career as a computer programmer. I ended up working for a British telecom and, uh, Chevron, actually, my last big job was, uh, Chevron when they were doing their Y2K conversion. Uh, so, uh, that was the early, early, uh, mid nineties, two K. Yeah, the world was gonna shut down, wasn't it? Well, it was, except the companies all knew that it was going to happen. So everybody, like shoring was pouring huge money into reprogramming their systems. And, uh, you know, it was a case of, uh, the news media kind of latched on to the early, oh, my God, something horrible could happen. And the companies were way ahead of them. Yeah, we got this cover. So Y2K rolled around and the companies all said, yeah, you see we did it. So you, so from there, you continued to progress into you clearly, you, you moved into the visual arts and like what you talked about illustration because you were driven by storytelling. Absolutely. And, and by then, uh we're, we're talking about the late nineties or so, I, uh I said, well, I really want to get into uh art. I, I'm, you know, I've done everything I can with programming, kind of tired of it. And I realized that the best way to leverage that because I'd been uh sort of teaching myself lots of uh different art techniques on my own. And then, uh when uh computer art started becoming a big thing, you know, I got myself a Mac and I learned how to do that. And I realized, well, I kind of knew all my contemporaries just getting into uh art, you know, out of college are all 10 years younger than me. And so I need something to uh give me a leg up. And I realized, well, it's the fact that I know how to talk to programmers and I know how to be a liaison. And pretty quickly I jumped into uh computer art. But uh within a year I was doing art directing because that was my, you know, value that I had II, I could do art and I could do programming and so I could be a liaison between those things. So art directing in the multimedia field was really, uh, cut out for me. So we did, uh, you know, lots of those, uh, educational games that were big back then, um, on CD ROM. And, uh, yeah, those were the days. Have, have you always been able to draw though? Like, I mean, you, you draw so, so easily, I mean, uh, the, the detail, I mean, have you always had that natural ability to be able to draw? I, I'd say I've, uh, I've always had the natural, um, willingness to draw because I, I'm sort of of the opinion that there's like two levels of talent. There's the one level of talent, which is what I have, which is just the willingness to try and do it over and over to practice and practice and enjoy the process. Because if you don't enjoy that process, you'll never have the quote talent. You know, you'll draw a couple of things and say that's ok and, you know, you'll go on to something else, but if you really like it, you'll really work hard at it and then you'll have that level of talent. Now, the other level is genius, which I don't have and very few people have, I don't know about that. There are people who, you know, they can think in ways that the rest of us can't. And that's what I'd qualify as genius. It's a good, that's a good point because the way that I see that you do things I think that you are a genius by the way. Um And the reason being is because uh from a spatial relations perspective, you have that down. I mean, when you draw something, it is perspective, I mean, everything comes to focal point and everything logically makes sense. And me with my engineering, left-handed engineering brain on when I see what you do like, you know, just like when we did, you know flex man, um it all made sense to me like, and there's a very few artists and people that I worked through, worked with uh throughout the years that that do what you do. So Patrick, this is Curt. It's an interesting journey you've had that you started off as an art major jump tracks over to music, got into technology and then you got back into what your heart made, what made your heart sing, right? They're drawing the art and what you applied technology to you, everything along your journey and watching it, you know, you hear this, I'm sure you're very familiar with it. The starving artist, you know, comment at what point did you realize you could start making a living by doing this? Well, I, I, I've always um been the sort of person who and, and for good or bad. I, I would say there's a lot of people who would, who would look at this as a bad thing. I always have thought of uh making a living at something as being sort of the, the ultimate uh uh proof that you're doing well. And maybe that's another reason I wasn't cut out for the fine arts community. Um So when I decided to jump from doing programming to doing art, you know, I put together a plan, I said, you know, I, I went to artists that I knew who were making a living at it. Uh 11 wonderful woman in particular who was at uh uh bun doing a lot of their stuff like uh thief. Uh What is that? Uh, the uh, oh the, the thief that jumps around, bro. I'm not familiar with, bro. Oh, got it. Ok. Anyway, and she did, she did Carmen San Diego. She did a lot of things like that and she was working on computer art and so I, I kind of went to her as a, as a, uh you know, mentor and got a lot of ideas about how the industry worked and, uh, you know, started dipping my toe in and there was actually about six months where I was working my computer job all day and then, uh doing art all night uh on paid jobs. Uh because, uh I believe that when you uh get a job with a real deadline and uh you know, payment and people need you to do it, it's going to focus your attention a lot more. And so as far as being a, being a starving artist, I say, well, if you're a starving artist, you're probably just kind of wandering around doing whatever you feel like. And you're not gonna get a lot better quickly. But if you get a job with a deadline, you're going to have to do it or starve and it really focuses your attention when you know, your, your rent money is coming from it. And so, uh I had that plan and, you know, within, within a year, I was doing art uh full time and haven't looked back since what, what got you into comics and comic books. Well, that, that is probably my, the money as a, as a kid. I just loved comics. Uh And my earliest art, you know, gods were all in the comics field, artists doing comics. And uh no, that's always been a uh you know, a boil on my neck ready to pop. Oh Thanks for that visual visual storytelling. Hold on a second. Yeah. There you go. We just got, what's your favorite comic? What was the one that really took you over the edge early on? You said you've always been a fan? Gosh, uh uh I was uh reading comics uh and collecting them and I ran across this artist from the sixties uh Jim Strano. And uh he was just a really uh experimental artist who brought a lot of the uh the pop art and art movements into his uh comics art and his storytelling was dynamic. And uh I just started, you know, going back and collecting all of his books and then seeing what he was doing uh in the seventies and eighties, which was uh he had moved more into uh illustration, book cover illustration. He had a, a magazine called Media Scene and I just got into everything he did. So I'd have to say he was probably my, my main biggest inspiration. So anyone who's interested should look up Jim Strano quite a style. So Patrick, which, which comics did he draw for. He uh had a kind of a mercurial career. He bounced around over the course of uh like five or six years at Marvel uh doing whatever he felt like. And he really only did about 30 less than 40 actual individual issues of things. But what he started out uh doing was uh he uh took over very early on the Nick Fury Agent of Shield strip. Uh He did that book for uh just a maybe a couple of years. That was his earliest thing and he really set the style for all of Marvel's uh you know, uh super spy stuff. And then he, and then he jumped to uh Captain America. He did only three issues of Captain America, but he basically redefined the character at that point. And then he started doing just a little of this and a little of that. Marvel had a horror magazine. He did one short story and that, that is still thought of as, as like a, a benchmark in, in horror comics uh design. And he did a love story comic where he did it all with this pop art style that no one had ever thought to use in comics. And he would just bounce around and uh it was a short but amazing career in comics. So, so Patrick, so this is, this is a good segue because one of the things that we've talked about in bits and pieces and, and you've talked about is, is sort of that balance between following your, your creativity and your passion and then the process and, and the business of it all. And uh you had, you know, you had said this, um you know, you were passionate about comics and, and so you, and you wanted to be telling stories and that's what kind of like moved your art, what I've always been interested in your ability to take, to channel that creativity into uh a process where you can, you can create uh standard outputs uh in a timeline, you know, on a, on a deadline, on a budget. Uh Can you talk a little bit about your process? Because I've always been fascinated with how you, you know, how you end up working with us with what we give you. Well, the uh well, the other side of, of uh what I've uh been doing is we've talked about the multimedia and the comics. I've also always just uh been fascinated with illustrations, you know, the standalone illustrations that tell a story with one picture and, and that's, that's most of what I've really been doing other than our first uh big graphic novel, I've been doing a lot of uh illustrations for folk tellers, uh you know, the covers uh and the interior illustrations. And as far as the process for that goes, it's, um in, in some ways it has to do with being a reader my whole life, you know, sort of a voracious reader. And I've always uh loved the storytelling uh world and when it comes to drawing, uh as I've said, my, my passion is, is telling that story. So the very first thing I always do is I'll try to zero in on part of the story that is, that is visual and, and doesn't just give an illustration like a character standing there and looking cool or an interesting, you know, creature or background or something. I always try to give the picture a feeling that there was story before it and there's going to be story after it and my action is leading from what happened before to what's going to happen next. Well, that's how do you do that? I mean, that's, that's amazing thought. But how do you do that visually? What do you, I, I can say just by, you know, looking at all that, the artwork that he's made for us over the years, all of his artwork is dynamic, isn't it? But how do you, how do you get that feeling? Like you just described Patrick where there's a story before and there's a story after from what you see. Well, as Steve mentions, the dynamics is, is a big part of it. If you, if you give your picture a sense of uh motion and even though it's standing still, you can give it a sense of kinetics by how you keep the, the lines and, and how people are balanced or unbalanced in the picture and how the composition is balanced or unbalanced. You can have a very formalistic composition that's uh that looks like it's real stable, so to speak. Uh or you can have an unbalanced composition that looks like it's falling off the page and going somewhere. And so visually, you like to do that. But also with, with storytelling comes the idea that you want to put pieces of, of the world that you're in, of the story that you're telling, you know, people are interacting with each other, they're not standing there. They're uh they look like they could be talking to each other about something or the world that you're in. Uh you know, be it a, you know, say you're on a mountainside or you're in a swamp or you're somewhere else. The world should look like you as the viewer could walk into it and say, oh, there's something around the corner there, I wonder what it is and the characters are looking over there. And so as the viewer, you wanna know what are those characters looking at? Well, it's interesting Patrick, because I remember as a kid growing up looking at Spiderman comics and Spiderman never looked like he was standing still, right? He, he looked like he was always moving, moving one way or another, right? Something was always, always moving. Yeah, Marvel always had that uh what a very uh huge kinetic emotion going on. Even if you're just standing there, you're standing with drama. What did you do for Marvel, by the way, I uh worked in their uh marketing department. I was a freelancer and I was mainly working on the Marvel Style guide. So it was uh sort of uh highly rendered uh individual pictures of, of various characters, you know, like I did a whole bunch of thor but then I did a lot of uh you know, various bad guys and good guys, uh a few silver surfer, you know, things like that. And that was used in the Marvel Style guide, which was what they would give to people who were uh uh licensing the Marvel characters. And so those books they got say you have to go by this official version of the character. Uh Then I also did some other point of sale marketing things. I i it's been many years, there was a time where, where this was like a cultural thing I could mention and, and everybody of a certain age would go. Oh, I remember that was, uh, in Target. They had, uh, when the Hulk movie, the second Hulk movie came out where that was 2008 or nine. they had these, uh, footprints on the floor. They were like big stickers that, that Target would put on the floor, that sort of lead to the toy section and they were the Hulks feet. Uh That's cool, tearing up the floor. I did those as a lot of people of a certain age, I can say that they go, I remember that I was just gonna say about my size. Yeah. So yeah, a lot of uh point of sale things. Uh Special, special projects. Yeah, that kind of thing. So I was on contract with them for quite a while. Awesome. Very cool. Well, Patrick, we appreciate your time today. Um Just before we, before we let you go. Um I mean, and by the way, what you said in this uh in this chat was it's gold. I mean, for, for visual story, we really sell, just leave like leave the listeners with uh it's a different point of view. I mean, what you what you shared, it's a different point of view to look at the world through a visual storytelling lens. So for the people that are listening, like, what are some best practices? Whether you're a whether you're an artist or not. Um What's some ways that, uh you know, you could, you could adjust your lens to look at uh stories in a more visual way. Hm. How about that? How about that? Yeah. Don't, don't try to stump the guest again. No. See Kurt would give him a lay up. You know, that's the team. I have a, I know he can answer it. Go ahead. Uh I, I think uh I think a big part of it if people want to um do visuals to go along with stories the way I do. Um It, it, it doesn't exactly answer your question, but I think it's very important as a, as an aspect of that uh is to read, read the story, imagine what's happening and then allow yourself to do things that you wouldn't normally think of, allow yourself to be creative and allow yourself to think of stupid things, allow yourself to do things that you wouldn't normally think of. Uh sketch a lot, do a lot of little tiny drawings, never spend too long on any one thing and come up with lots of different ideas and allow yourself to fail along the way uh and keep, uh you know, keep an open mind that don't ever stop yourself before. You've tried it. How about that? Yeah. That's awesome. That's sage advice. So where can people see your work? Of course, they can go to uh folk Tillers Studios dot com or folk tillers dot com and see Patrick's work. But where can they see like the, the full depth and breadth of, of your art? I've, I've got a, uh, a website that has a number of pieces on it and I probably ought to update it more often says everybody with a website. Uh it's uh uh mega flow graphics dot com, megaflow graphics dot com. And it's got a lot of my work there. It's got uh comics work, uh book illustration work uh covers and it's even got a little section with some of my multimedia. Excellent. Well, again, Patrick, thanks for being on and uh we appreciate everything that you do and uh we're so happy that you're part of the folk teller family. Well, thanks guys. And uh this was great to be a part of, I've been listening to your podcast since it started and it's been a lot of great entertainment. So you guys are or something. All right, we'll talk to you soon. All right, thanks Patrick. Nice to meet you. Take care, take care, Patrick. OK, bye bye. Cheers. All right. So, uh again, you know, Patrick, he said he wasn't, uh I guess any genius never calls himself a genius. It has to be put upon him. Yeah, talented, very talented. So if you get a chance, check out his work, I mean, if you look at our stuff, you'll see it. But uh mega flow graphics dot com but anyway, so this got me thinking there's a term called visual literacy. There's a really cool video out there. Uh Martin Scorsese did about uh the necessity for visual literacy and he gives a really good description of it. You can, if you Google Martin Scorsese visual literacy, you'll find it. It's I think it's like a seven or eight minute video, but he talks about um it's important to understand uh the visual medium. And I really think in modern storytelling, you absolutely have to. Uh because people are reading, I think people are not reading less, but they're reading differently, they're reading in smaller chunks and what you're seeing like, like, well, look at a magazine, it's more pictures and text now, uh websites, more pictures than text. It's like minimize the text, maximize the visual and the imagery. And that's kind of like, you know, modern, you know, modern storytelling is that it is that the problem the problem with that is, is uh images don't index text into search engines. So you can't find anything if your whole entire website is just based on images. So from a digital perspective, that's not a good action plan. You have to, you really have to have a blend between the text and the story for you to be able to do well on the web and be successful. That's great insight from the tech guy. It really is. So from the OK. And that is, but from the storytelling side. What's the right balance? Yeah. For me, it's, it's like, I think we, our brains are being constantly rewired, right? If you look at over the decades, over the centuries, how visual has become even more important in the last 2030 years, we're, I mean, we're getting rewired. My, our, I, I truly believe our brains are being rewired by the use of technology and things that we're doing now that we're becoming more visually uh a astute that, that visual is our. Before in education, there used to be different types of learning, right? You're an auditory learner, you had a visual learner, you had somebody who was kinesthetic, right? They have to, I I, in my opinion, I see a shift more and more to visual that people are visual that they've learned through visual. And so that's an important part of the storytelling because without that, um you know, like you said, people are reading differently now. And I think in, in my opinion, they're reading more visually as a result. Look at Power Point for an example, like when they invented powerpoint, it was supposed to be very visual and there's only supposed to be a small amount of text, but like one point that Power point, not power points. And so what ended up happening is, you know, a lot of industry, they, you know, they, they started to, to use it like it was a book and I've said to those death by powerpoint presentations. But that's a prime example of, of, you know, visual literacy. That's, that's a really good example. In fact, I've told clients, uh powerpoint is not a prompter, right? That's a good way to put it. I mean, like, put it all in perspective and there's like uh that 10, 2030 rule for Power Point, it's supposed to be, I'm gonna probably get this wrong, but it's supposed to be no more than 10 slidess, no more than uh 20 point font. And the 30 is uh like no more than 30 years old, 30 years old. But that it's basically keep it short, keep it short and sweet and highly visual. And Steve this got me thinking about when we do Hollywood pitch decks because this is to me visual storytelling and what it means in the modern world is the visuals are the gateway to a deeper experience and I'll explain that. So a good example is these pitch decks we have to put together the initial pitch check. I mean, we're like, you're consolidating, it's very few words, but it's highly visual and it's dynamic visuals because you're trying to get people that don't know. Yeah, I mean, they have the attention span of a nat. So it's like, OK, this is bright and pretty and there's movement and, and there's uh there's a little blurb. So I know what's going on and the whole idea of the pitch deck is all right to get them to say, yeah, let me see more. Let me see the script or let me see the books and then they'll go into the text. They wanna go deeper, but it has to tell the story. It does. That's the challenge. It's like I, I just read um it was the description of what they said. Uh The guy was saying uh he was a famous poet and I can't think of it. It was like uh a great poem is maximum impact in minimum space. And I think that's what visuals do for you. Well, as an example, when I do keynote presentations, I, I use powerpoint or different formats, but a lot of visuals, I I'd say literally 85 to 90% of my presentation from the Power Point side is visual rules every once in a while, a few words, some statistics, uh some video as well. But for that reason, right, people are looking to consume in different ways as a result and, and you know, the storytelling can come verbally in my case. And I, but, but like to your point, Joseph, that, that people are reading differently, I guess in your opinion, what are the different ways that people are reading this as far as that literacy, that storytelling, visual literacy? What is it? Well, I think like, OK, so I go back to, you know, magazines and periodicals. Um the articles are shorter there, there's more, there's more pictures. In fact, when you hear people talk about actually reading a novel or reading a book or reading for pleasure. It's like, uh, they have to set the time aside and it's like, uh, you know, I want my, my coffee and my blanket and it's, it's like a comfort thing and it's like something like that. They have to set aside where before you had to, you were reading a lot just to get through your day, whether it was your business or whatever. Um So, you know, I think that's the technology definitely like the reading on the screen and that's changed everything. So now you've really got to consolidate, like Steve said, you still have to tell the story. Um But now you have to, it has to be more highly visual and less and less text. Um And there's more graphic novels now too, right? Yeah, that's another thing. Yeah. So wrapping all this up, I mean, we again, we could, we could just go on forever, but a visual storytelling. What are, what are we walking away with? I mean, what, what do people need to be sensitive or looking out for? Yeah, right off the bat. I know first and foremost is that there has to, it's best to have a visual attached to the narrative. In other words, if I have a narrative, it's best to attach some type of visual to that. Uh you know, Patrick talked about his gift of, of drawing and what he does with graphics, whether it be from the computer or with his hand. Um That, that's an important part of that story is seeing that visual, like you said, um the, it's amazing that he talks about the story that comes before that visual and afterwards, by looking at that visual, that's great, Steve. What about you? I think the future is gonna be very interesting in visual storytelling because we, we did a podcast on A I and A I is gonna have a huge impact on, on what happens in the future, you know, like um applications like mid journey and um you know, and uh GP T four, you know, and the, and the combination of those, those technologies together, I mean, things are gonna change guys. Yeah, quickly. For, for me it's the balance between the visual and the text of the narrative, the narrative. So um and, and how you got to look at it every iteration because it, whoever your audience is and whatever you're trying to do, you're gonna have to strike that balance. So, um all right guys. Another good one. Thanks for Patrick. Oh Yeah, cool. Yeah. Um So everyone check out mega flow graphics dot com if you want to see Patrick stuff. And uh thanks for letting us be in your ears.

I Don’t Think We’re in Kansas Anymore: The Deepening of Immersive Storytelling

What makes for an interesting interactive story? How complex must the story be? Why some interactive stories (like in gaming) flop? Why is the user experience so important? Our guest this week is Ronda Thomas from Alozari. "At Alozari we seek to return that connection through a collaboration of seasoned professionals in events, entertainment, and technology. We’ve been weaving the real and the virtual worlds together for decades, always at the forefront of technology and engagement."   Folktellers Universe [https://folktellers.com/]   #Storytelling #StoriesToBeShared #FolkTellers #Alozari #RondaThomas #InteractiveStories   All right, this is week 10. I don't think we're in Kansas anymore. The deepening of interactive storytelling today, we're talking about interactive storytelling, immersive storytelling. And what does this all mean in this, in this modern age? And so guys, I wanna begin with a, a quote from a video game. What is a man? But the sum of his memories, we are the stories we live and the tales that we tell ourselves. This is from uh Clay Kasick of in Assassin's Creed Brotherhood. If you've ever played Assassin's Creed, actually, I am not a big video game person, but I love some of the stories that they tell my kids play these deep um interactive games like Assassin's Creed. And, uh that's the only one I can think of top of my mind. But there's actually a story to those. Oh my gosh. Yeah. And they're great. I mean, they're by, they're so immersive and they're so layered. Uh, you have full character development stuff. We need to introduce our, uh compadres here. Uh We've got the elusive, elusive, you keep getting up to go to the back. Yeah, that's, that was a stretching and the uh incredulous. I have no idea what that word means. Look that one up, look it up. You are often incredulous. OK. Maybe not today because you, you were smiling. So Stephen Sadler, Stephen Sadler is here. All right guys. So uh I don't think we're in Kansas anymore. We're talking about the, the deepening of interactive storytelling. This is a, a kind of a mysterious one. Not um it's not mainstream. No, this is not mainstream. And so, you know, are or is it well? OK, let me begin with this. Let me begin with this. So here's, here's a quote about interactive storytelling in our highly mediated technology driven world. We are all looking for meaningful ways to connect. This has constantly inspired me to create environments full of lively immersive experiential elements specifically crafted to foster human connection. And this is uh David Rockwell from uh he's a, he's a game developer, but we're talking about game more than just games. We're just, I mean, this is kind of a can be a uh a melange of different interactive, what do you guys think about interactive storytelling? Like again, we'll do our, our gut check before we bring our Well. Yeah. And, and for me, when I hear this and when I, I understand what it's about, it's, it's just part of that trans media, right? It's part of that trans media approach for telling a story. You can have a film, you could have a TV, you could have uh a TV show, you could have a book and you can have it in a game or, or some type of um platform like this where the stories are being told. And this is, this is something new to me. Um And it's interesting because it is just another platform, but you have people that really enjoy this platform to tell their story, to live their story. And what, what is, what is interactive storytelling? Is it just a video game or do we live in it? 00, this, this smells like a rabbit hole to me. This is all right, Steve Lay, lay down that. What's, well, there was an interesting project that um Carnegie Mellon. Um uh A few guys from Carnegie Mellon created. Uh I think they stopped the program in 2002. And it's funny because I didn't know that you were gonna title this podcast uh with Kansas. But the project was called the Oz Project, which is kind of strange. Yeah, but the way that the, the uh the Oz project works, I mean, it's probably what the, the framework that they've actually used for a lot of video gaming since then. And I know some of the guys that worked on that project actually got into A I. Um but there's an interesting component to it all is one, you have an interactor. OK. So if I'm a part of this interactive storytelling system, so imagine it's a piece of technology, right? Um I'm interfacing as the interactor. Uh Then there's characters that are controlled by something called a drama manager. OK. Is this something they're building? Is this they built this? OK. So this is a piece of technology, correct? Keep going. And this drama ma manager actually was responsible for moving the characters around to make sure that you are having an interactive experience within this, you know, this environment, this physical environment, which is not a physical environment, it looks like one, but it's a, you know, a 3d virtual environment. Um but it could have multiple different endings. So maybe there's 10 or 15 different programmed endings, you know, back then because back then probably they weren't using A I with you, I should say machine learning with machine learning, you could probably have, you know, limitless number of endings relative to, you know, what the characters are doing and what you're doing relative to interacting with the characters. Well, when you look at the way that that system is all laid out, is that not the world that we actually live in, is there not a master drama manager which is controlling the characters? Maybe I'm the inter actor and you are a character. You, you already were a I Joseph that I still am. This is, this is the, this is you, you, you might be a character in my story and vice versa. I'm a character, character many times So who is this big drama manager? Yeah. Well, it's interesting because I, I remember in one of our earlier episodes, you kept avoiding the A I language. It was like this is mechanical learning, right? This machine learning machine learning, right? And so same thing with this that this is a machine technology that tells a story. But this is something I didn't know that these, these games, if you look at that aspect only they are telling a story and you're living that story during that game. Yeah. So, so what you guys are touching on and this is becoming more and more prevalent in the development world, whether it's whether it's development of technology, whether it's um it's anything tied to story is story world development. And we've touched on this a little bit, but this concept of being able to build out an entire world. And previously, you know, you did this, you know, you could do it through books or you did it through a game and like, and now it's like, and it's what we've said that's really trans media. If you're doing it right, it's really story world building. And as Steve has said, it's like building a platform where it though there will be multiple outfit uh outlets and outputs. But that it's really all about the story and the multiple layers, wouldn't it be great if we can get an expert on our show to talk about this? But if we could do that. Yeah. In fact, uh, so Rhonda Thomas works for a company called Azari and we're gonna have her on and, uh, she'll, she'll be able to, to enlighten us a little bit before she comes on. I, I'll forget this. Thought. There is a, a piece of technology called conductor and it's spelled weird. I have to look it up. But, um, there's the, uh, Robert Prat. So Robert Prat and Jeff Gomez are the two like gurus of story World Building. So what Robert Prat did years ago um he built this engine, this like Steve you were talking about uh the Oz project. It was um it was a tool where you could basically build out your trans media story. It was called conductor where you were like the conductor of a symphony and you had full control of the story and then what the outputs were gonna be and you, you would stage it. Um it never took off because it was too complex. You had to be an expert developer. But what he does now he took the same technology and he's using it for crisis simulation. He's out, he's in London and I talked to him a couple of times. Super, super smart, super nice guy. But um now he does these crisis scenarios and and uh they're live scenarios but it's all managed with this, with this conductor system. So it's like the drama manager. It is he is the drama manager, the conductor. Like that was the analogy he used was the conductor of the orchestra. And you decide what piece you're gonna play, especially the drama, right? I mean, it's, it's we're talking drama. Well, welcome. Uh Rhonda. Thomas. Rhonda is our good friend from a Azari and I'll let her describe uh the, the crazy, cool things that Azari is doing. But Rhoda, you're here with uh Kurt David and Stephen Sadler and here's truly. Hi, Rhonda. How are you? I'm good, good. Nice to meet you. Good to hear you. Like, which part of the world are you in? So, I'm in Park City, Utah. I'm in the mountains at about 7000 ft. Is it still snowing? No, thank heavens. We had snow into June this year. I know. Oh my God, it's beautiful. Absolutely beautiful. Awesome. Well, Rhoda, thanks for, thanks for being on with us. We're talking about uh interactive storytelling and we're kind of going deep. This is kind of a mix of uh technology and story world building. And um it's right in your wheelhouse. So, you know, you've started this company, uh a Azari and it's, you know, I think it falls into the metaverse but it falls into a lot of different things. What is a Azari? What are you, what are you trying to do with um with your technology and with your interactive storytelling? Sure, thanks. So it goes back to the name of the company. So the the name of the company is a, a made up word Alo Zari. And we picked it because Zari is the golden thread that weaves through cloth, ancient cloth and Allo is hello in most many languages. So we looked at communication or storytelling as the golden thread that weaves through experience for people. And we wanted to really tie people together and give them shared experience. I've been working in technology for a very long time longer than I care to admit. And I think that technology while it's allowed us to communicate, it's all, it's also separated us as community. It's we each, you know, if you look at the algorithms for Facebook or, or Twitter or tiktok, they all, they go to these small, small, small interests and it splits you apart from the main whole. And so what we've been trying to do with a Azari, a Azari is a what we call curated live events in the metaverse. So it's available on any browser, it's avatar based. So you come in as an avatar, you can look like yourself or anybody you want and you can talk to people just like you would in the real world and you can share experiences which I think the problem with Zoom or Webex as wonderful as they are. And as much as they connected us during the pandemic, it's really a platform for one to many or 1 to 1, but it's not many to many. You can't walk up to somebody in a zoom meeting and start your own conversation. But in a Azari you can. So coming from the live event world and the technology world, our idea is to facilitate that shared experience that builds community and builds culture and allows companies to really reach and engage their customers by amplifying their brand. And that, so that, that's kind of what we do. You don't need a headset, it's not VR you can access it on your phone or your tablet or your computer and we think it's gonna be the new, probably one of the most powerful mediums we can have for storytelling. Yeah. Why do you, why do you think that, I mean, how does this differ from a chat room or way back when, when they tried to launch like second life and, and things like that? How, how do you think this is gonna differ? So I think the difference from a chat room is you actually have a physical presence and you move through an environment and then Azari, we created a photorealistic environment. So it looks like what you're used to experiencing in the world. And it's very interesting as we were building it and we would have our avatars running around or my business partner has their avatar doing jumping jacks, you sort of feel like you're actually doing it. So you get a real sense of presence that you don't have in a chat, but it differs from second life and that it's, the technology has really come a long way, you feel like you're there and it looks like you're there. And in fact, technology is to the point where we could even put you in as a hologram into the environment as exactly yourself and track your actual movement. So I think it's where I think of it kind of like the next phase of the internet where it's not flat and it's not just user generated content, but the entire thing is driven by the user. So I think your, your platform of choice to build this on was uh was the Unreal engine, correct? Right. So we're using gaming technology. Uh-huh and bringing it to bringing it to a broader audience because it doesn't require a download. So for example, probably the one of the most successful games is Fortnite, which is also built on an Unreal engine, that's a 90 plus gigabyte download. So if you are, um if you want to come in for a short meeting or a short event and you're in a, in a corporation, they're not gonna let you download 90 gigabytes. And this doesn't require you to download anything and you also need a really powerful computer to download something like Fortnite, right? You can't play Fortnite on your phone, but all of the heavy lifting for Azari is done in the cloud. So you don't have to have, you don't have to have a huge bandwidth, you don't have to have a huge computer. So if you're in a school in Kenya and you have a tablet, you have enough bandwidth and enough power to access a Azari. Wow. Yeah, actually some of the biggest flops that have happened in the history of gaming actually is where uh the developers actually designed beyond the limitations of the console. So it's uh it's good to hear that. That, that's, that's the uh the path that you, that you guys are taking. Yeah, it sounds like you're lowering the barrier to entry because that's usually the biggest thing is if you haven't designed the lowest common denominator, you're not gonna get uh you're not gonna get usage. Well, Ron, I'm curious, um you alluded to it shortly, but what are some of the implications for this? So when we say curated live events, my background is out of taking technology into sports and arts and entertainment. So sponsors for the Olympics or professional cycling or the NFL or global music concerts, all of that kind of content can come into a Azari. And similarly, if you're thinking big conferences like Oracle Open World or Sap Sapphire or even a small local meeting, all of that can come into a Azari because what we do is we, we get rid of the physical boundaries of space. So say you have a meeting that only fits 10 people. Well, now it could fit 10,000 people. We get rid of the physical boundaries and we get rid of the distance boundaries. So the applications really are think about any shared experience that you have with someone in the real world close. You could probably have an Wow, that's amazing because it is, it can really expand the storytelling that we're talking about, right? I mean, this platform can help in that capacity. Yeah, I mean, if you wanna, if you wanna use an example, um Rhoda, the application that you guys were gonna build with folk tellers um about recreating those um those those actual theaters. If you wanna, if you wanna talk about that a little bit. Sure. Yes. So because we are photorealistic, um we can take in technology is pretty amazing nowadays and we can scan in. So the theater, so Folk tellers was gonna do a s a concert series and in a famous old theater in Canada and we were looking at, we can replicate the theater um down to the sea cushions, right? And so the people that are there at the live experience have the live experience, but the people that are in a Azari can share that experience in a theater that looks and feels identical to what the live environment is. And um so we have the ability to mix the reel and the live. And even in fact, we could put a screen in the live theater, say in the lobby where the people at the live event can talk to the people in the metaverse and vice versa. Resurrecting the past. Yeah. So, yeah. So it really, it really allows us to mix the two worlds together. Has she connected with Angus Vale from our previous The Globe Theater? I mean, literally it just, yeah, we, we uh we had Angus Vale on, he's a kiss, his financial manager and he's a, he's building building uh the Globe Theater uh out of uh shipping containers here in Detroit. So it's a virtual world. Yeah. Yeah. So we'll, we'll take, we'll take that one. Yeah, we'll take that one off line. Well, I had a question for you. Yeah. Uh So my, so here's my, my question is I'm wondering from a, not everyone gets excited because it'll be an incredible user experience. But from the people that need to launch these, you need to produce this. I mean, what level of complexity is this? If you know, it sounds like uh a similar skill set of someone who's like if you're running a campaign or you're, you're an event planner. Um Is this something that, that they would use uh to create virtual events? Sure. Yeah, it is. Most of the really difficult technology is built in the back end. And what, what you're really doing for any different event is you're just skinning it. You're creating art and, but all of the applications like talking to people or showing live video or sharing printed materials, all of those tools are already built. So from an event producer, standpoint or from an advertising campaign manager, it's really just creative art and, and the order in which you want the tools to appear. So it's really pretty simple um from that level. So I mean, this is a huge powerful storytelling tool. I mean, when, when are we gonna see it? I mean, how, how soon, how soon is a Azari like ready to uh light the fuse and and send the ship up to space? Yeah. So we are just coming out into the marketplace. I think that um we are ready, we will be in active use for the average consumer by fall and we're just finishing up some integration as some of our technology partners. One of the things we've been looking into as everyone's hearing about artificial intelligence, right? And how A I impacts storytelling and how A I impacts user experience in a live environment. So we've been working to integrate with a couple partners that will allow us to have what are called NP CS in the game world, non player characters. So you could walk up to someone at a theater and they could be the usher and they might recognize you and they could say, you know, hi, Kurt, welcome to the show. We know you always like to sit in the second row center. Follow me, right? That A I can do all of that and you can and So we're just finishing the integration for that and we'd like to get that done before we, before we go to launch with some of the live events we're playing, we can uh rent out A I Joseph for if you like to. So yeah, that Steve's my A I agent. Now see, I think as a storyteller is incredibly powerful and, you know, we've always seen that stories connect culture and they give us common ground and they give us, you know, it's myth if you go back to Joseph Campbell and, and people sitting around the fire and telling stories to each other. Um I think one of my favorites is Ira Glass said that great stories happen to those who can tell them. I think the happening part as well as the telling part is what Azari will facilitate. But on a really on a global basis. Yeah, very cool. It's around uh you know, this is Kurt, I, I do public speaking and, and keynote speaking and he used to do a lot before the world shut down and then it changed this hybrid model, right? You see this hybrid of, of in person as well as uh virtual. Uh but you know, I I still see it not 100% in person. There's still a lot of virtual platforms for doing this. Is this something that this will address, right? This is something you can still do both, correct? Yeah, you can still do both. And I think the difference between a Azari and the majority of platforms that are out there now is that rather than it just being a video that you watch, even if it's live, the difference is you can be sitting next to Steve and, and Joseph and you can be in the same room and I can lean over to you and say, hey, what do you think about that joke? He just told that's my favorite, right? And you get that interaction and the shared experience that you don't get on just the video platforms right now. Wow, what if I don't want to sit next to him though, I guess. Is that something I can for you in your own? Very own better question. Is, is, is there enough space in a Azari for Kurt to have a virtual? You can see uh he's, he's almost 7 ft, so 4 ft and 33 inches in, in AAA. He can be, he, he could experience what it's like to be a short female if he wants. Oh boy. Well, I don't know if I want to go there. But, but the the avatar is what you're talking about, right? You create the avatar avatar. And I think that's gonna be really interesting. You guys were talking about accessibility. I think the ability to put yourself in someone else's shoes, literally in an environment and to walk around and experience the world as a different race or as a different sex or maybe as a non sex, identified individual, the way people react to you is gonna be different. I can't get this vision out of my head. Now, looking at your curt, if you're sitting here in a 22 or something, you don't have to worry because you won't see that. OK, so you, you got me thinking about sort of the, the whole, the whole experience. How is this experience going to differ? Like, OK, for example, a concert. So what you're saying is this could be, you could have a hybrid concert where there's still the live concert, but then there's also the virtual experience is happening live at the same time. Correct? Is that, I mean, that's, that's in the, in the offing. Um So what, what is that, what is that, you know, concert goer experience? How is that gonna differ from, you know, what they're, what they're doing now? I think it's gonna be really interesting. I mean, the, the, so the leaders in the music industry are saying that platforms like Ali Ari are going to disintermediation, the recording industry from the artist and the artist can go direct to their fan. So if you think about, so if I want to have my uh my own private club, I, I'm Justin Bieber and I want to hold a concert once a month. Um I can have that venue, it can be mine. I can perform in it and my fans from all over the world could come buy a ticket, enter as an avatar and there's several different ways that the artist can perform. The artist could perform live on video. The artist could perform as an avatar with um motion tracking um or the artists were getting to the point where the artist could perform as a hologram in the platform. So if you were at a live concert, so say, say the concert we were talking about in, in Canada, the musicians are on the stage and the audience is watching the concert while we would be most likely at that point, videoing the the live concert and feeding it into a Azari as a concert and they would be watching it. You could be watching it on a screen. Now, if we wanted to go one step further, we could put a green screen behind the artist even in, in um virtually do it and then put the artist into a Azari in 3d. So there's a lot of different ways things can happen and we could even sync musicians up from multiple different locations. So I don't know if you saw some of the ones during the pandemic where the drummers didn't play like I think was the Rolling Stones um because the sync, you couldn't sync them. Exactly. So we've been working on technology right now, we can sync up to 12 different locations. Um So they can play together. That's crazy musicians definitely need another avenue to be able to generate revenue. That's, that's a fact, especially with all the other ways that they've lost revenue. So that's a great thing that you, that you're doing. No, Steve Steve, you're hitting on something because this is gonna, this kind of technology is gonna create a whole another service industry, don't you think Rhonda just to develop? I think so? Absolutely. It's gonna, it's gonna really, it, it really allows people to have a low cost of entry to a mass audience. Um But in a way where the mass audience can be together as opposed to alone at home. And that sounds odd because you really will be at home, but you'll feel like you're not. So speaking of audience, where can our audience find out more about this, about the development of it where it's heading more information about it? We have a pretty simple website, Azari dot com. You can find the information there. And other than that, we've kept it kind of under wraps until today, until today. Until today. You can email me. You can email me, right. So that would be easy or we'll, we'll guide people to you, that's for sure. OK. There you go. All right. Well, so, but Joseph, tell me about how you see, you know, you had talked about folk teller Universe. How do you see that playing out in the 3d world? Oh, yeah, you're, I'm like way above my pay grade on, on that, I mean, just, you know, but just like, you know, and we've, we've, we've talked uh with you and Alison at, at, at length and, uh I, I just believe I, this is what I, I always go back to the story, like, and, and, you know, Steve and I have been proponents of trans media for, for years and, and to me, this is a, this is a powerful trans media storytelling engine. And, you know, one of the things that, uh you know, we've, we've talked about so, you know, for, for folk tellers, our audience, it's family entertainment, but like the books are, are like middle grade fantasy fiction. And I, I've said this before is I do not have and we do not have direct access to our primary audience. Like we don't have direct access to kids. We, we have direct access to the parents and teachers and librarians and um you know, they invite us uh into, you know, to speak to the kids, but something like this, like what you said, you know, having direct access to your audience, uh We currently don't have that today and that would be pretty cool if we could be um you know, interacting as storytellers with our primary audience uh in a, in a, in a, in a safe uh appropriate way. And I, I go ahead, I was gonna say, I don't know if you've been to London to actually see the sets, the Warner Brothers sets for Harry Potter. You have. Yeah. It, it's imagine that done in a Azari. Yeah. And, and I can imagine a, a virtual folk teller's story being done like that. So, you know how they, like, they've captured all the sets and they, they walk you through the big hall and then you go through all the sets like a four hour experience. I mean, there's no reason that, you know, with the technology that you're doing, you know, that that can't be done, you know, virtually. And I think that um that would be an amazing path for folk tellers and all of the beautiful stories that Joseph has written over the years. Yeah, I think it's really interesting because there will always be, there will always be a place for the Harry Potter sets in London and that experience in person. But think how many people will never be able to get there. Right. Right. Right. And if you could take that and create it in a virtual world and expand the accessibility to, you know, hundreds of thousands more people to really have that. And, you know, you look at the impact that Harry Potter stories had on culture and how, I don't know if you guys remember when the books would come out and they would have sleepovers at book midnight release parties, book sellers, little, little midnight release parties. Right. And imagine you can expand that. I, I like to really just think about it in terms of bringing amazing experiences. I mean, I've been really lucky in my business that I've been, you know, to the Olympics and I've been to amazing concert from backstage and I've been to the top of Alto for the Tour de France or all for work and all for brands. But so few of us ever get to those places and how exciting it would be to open all that up. Agreed. Ok, for people to experience. Yeah. So, so in closing Rhonda, if you were to take this Zari thread and pull it all the way through, where, where would, where would we be ending up? Where would we, what path would we be the golden thread? That is, yeah, I think the path of the golden thread would lead us to a more engaged and cohesive society because I think what's happened with technology is we're all, you know, you think back to Walter Cronkite, right? And how everybody got mainly the same news and it's not that differing views are bad, but it's allowed us to get more and more and more siloed and have less and less in common as a people worldwide. And I hope that this platform can be used to make some bridges across culture and follow that storytelling thread back to the cultural engagement that I think we all used to have. Yeah. Well said, yeah, well said. Amen to that. Well, Rhonda, thank you so much uh for, for being on. Um We really appreciate it and um, well, now the cat's out of the bag and you've, you've shared the ari secret. So uh we'll be sharing it, we'll be sharing it as well. But um any, any parting words before we let you go. No, just thank you so much for really letting me engage in this and I think that, you know, storytelling is what we need more of. I really do. So thank you so much for your time and for sharing this with me. Thank you. And we'll talk to you soon. Ok. All right. Take care guys. Thanks. Bye bye. Bye, bye. Wow, she is right. That's what I keep thinking in my mind right now. Just wow, with the potential of this. Yeah. And that whole conversation, I mean, clearly, I, I mean, I love storytellers that have a vision. I mean, Rhonda was so articulate and, and I mean, we had talked about how eventually you gotta strip your story down to. And she said, basically, this is an opportunity to bring people in to bring people back together. We didn't ask it, how, how long has she been working on this? Um They said they started when we started talking to them. It was, they started during COVID. So that's three or four years. But she's been involved in a lot of other interactive storytelling projects through huge brands. So she's been as she said she's been in tech longer than she wants to remember. But uh this is different. She's got um she's really defined what her purpose is. And um so yeah, what blows me away is that, that the, the use of technology to do it? I mean, when, when she's talking holograms and things like that and this technology, like you're sitting next to somebody and they're there and the entertainer and we have this Ava, I mean, just I'm trying to visualize it, right as well of how this all works and, and, but it's, it's exciting to see because it's just another media to tell a story. And I'll add to that and say that, I think this is one way where you can humanize technology and that's kind of what they're trying to do. What's funny is so Rhonda's background is intact, but she's also uh for years and years has helped run the um the folk festival. What's the big one in the Newport, the Newport Folk Festival, which is like the most famous music festival. That's what like she's done a lot of the live. So that, that, that very uh organic, you know, very human. Yeah. Yeah. And then, and you know, to, to bring that in with the technology is absolutely brilliant. It's pretty cool. And, and to me like that, I mean, that's what it's kind of like you're looking at that North star of interactive storytelling. I mean, you, you Steve you brought up the, the Oz project. How did that? So how did that end up? Like, what, where did that? Why did they stop? Well, I think what happened is that they all broke into different pieces. Like some guys went into A I, some went into VR they just became different names right? Under different pieces of technology. But uh I think it was 2002, I think I said that before that, that was that when they actually finished as their, they called it their motley crew of uh of developers, but uh some brilliant, brilliant guys that, you know, that, that came up with, with, with that solution and that platform. Um but just as they're still trying to integrate A I into a Azari, I mean, still these pieces, they're not all put together. I mean, we live in very, very interesting times where, you know, there's still not a main platform where you can go to. And one of the biggest problems is, is you don't want to have a flop, you know, many video games that have had flops is where, you know, they've taken on too much and they've tried to build the uh the application beyond the console uh capabilities or beyond the graphics card or beyond the process or whatever. And I think where Azari will be successful as we spoke, when we were speaking to her, she's not, they're not doing that. They're trying to, you know, as you said, get under the lowest common denominator of, make sure that the technology will work on any single device. Um And if holograms come in the future and they work, you know, and, and these new headsets, maybe they're more the way, the way they're designed are more communal. So they're not like this or I'm, you know, isolated with a headset. I think, I think that'll be the big difference, but it still goes back to the same thing where you are the interactor of the system. You, that's, that's, it's all about you and the, and the, the drama manager and all these care, secondary characters that are guiding you down that path, that process that they built I think is, it's still the common thread that um that is gonna be used for storytelling. Yeah. And so as we're the storytellers, right? So you think about what are the implications for the way that you tell stories? So, Kurt, so you do a ton of public speaking and motivational speaking and you're, you know, you're on the circuit before 2020. But I mean, that's like you, I mean, like change like a champion, which is your, which is your company. Um You have a message that you're getting out there and you're, you're talking to leaders about change and transformation. And so how would um this type of thing impact you and your business? I, I kept thinking about that the whole time when she was describing it. I kept thinking over and over. I thought for one, the, the app, the ability to have in person and a real uh virtual or hybrid, whatever you wanna call it experience where it's not just watching a video, it's actually like she mentioned, you could have interaction with the person sitting next to you, they have a tire sitting next to you or whatever that uh created character is that you have um the ability to interact perhaps even with the presenter during that time or, or afterwards. And you know, the potential of this to me is exciting because one of the things that I enjoy when I go to speak in person is that interaction before and after it's not just being on stage, it's talking to the people afterwards or beforehand and just hearing their stories. And so this takes the technology to be able to do that that before in a hybrid model, you couldn't, right? You basically are just watching a video when it's over, it's over and then you log off, right? The other key like for you as a speaker too. I mean, you gain the energy from the audience, right? And so you don't want to lose that in a piece of technology and in zoom, you, you, you immediately lose it and it's like, OK, I got all these little screens up. But if you are in more of a virtual environment where you can actually see these avatars and, and, you know, there's emotion built into them so that you can see what's going on, you know, see their reaction to, to what, to, what you're saying. That's the difference. We're, we're a ways away from that. But that's what for it to be successful for interactive, you have to have that, that interactive and you be able to see what's going on in front of you. Yeah, very practical application is I'm 6 ft nine inches tall. You can't tell that on a zoom. You don't know. Right. But I'm in person. It's like, whoa, ok, there's a, an impact factor as a result of that. My avatar is 6 ft 10, by the way, just by an inch on our, on our last call, I knew how tall you were because I could see your knees up by your chin. Well, that's when I'm sitting on an airplane. Right? That's where you see me like that. Oh my God. I see. I, I see. I'm thinking from a storyteller perspective and there's, there's tons of things that uh of implications of this technology in storytelling. And I keep coming back to, you know, and I said this to Rhonda and she, she agreed that um there's gonna be a whole another service industry around staging and producing um using this technology because um it's gonna be the storytellers that become sort of the, the planners and developers and because you're gonna have to treat this. You're gonna have to use it as like as part of a live event and sometimes it'll be an event, an event unto itself and someone's gonna have to design it, someone's going to have to produce it and someone's gonna have to stage it. What, what we didn't get to ask, Ron is in uh the conversation Steve and I had had with a Azari before a lot of the assets you develop for their platform, you can use those same assets to develop an interactive game. Sure you can. So now like, you know, there's a, there's a cost share, like if you, you know, we're looking at it, you know, from folk tellers perspective because we're a trans media company, it's like, well, if we invested in, you know, uh a Azari doing some stuff for us, part of that investment, we would get back because we'd be getting uh assets to develop our interactive game at the same time and, and you, you hit it right in the head. They are assets, assets, meaning that they have value. And so remember we, we talked about building your digital footprint, um you know, on the web or socially, right? This is building your digital footprint in your tangible 3D assets. So if I build out an entire say I did the entire uh Harry Potter, you know, place in London, OK. You know how many assets there would be in 3D? Think about that. I mean, hundreds of thousands. Yeah. So you're talking millions and millions of dollars because there's a lot of work and effort that has to go into building all of those assets. Now, once they're built, they can be reused over and over again as different instances. Um, I go, go back to the days when I used to design things. You would say if I'm, I'm gonna use a specific 3d part over and over again, I draw it and I, I would create instances of that, that I can use all the way through designing a guy or a car or whatever, right? This is really the same thing, you know, and I think that that's going to provide a lot of value in the future to companies and the, the way that they, they calculate value and assets is going to start to change because that this is really important to that. So yeah, this gets this splinters and gets complex really fast. So, you know, as we're wrapping up, let's um I, I kind of want to put this question out there back to storytelling. What is the implication because you could, you could go down this rabbit hole and get completely lost and kind of freak out. But if, if you're a storyteller, regardless of your medium and you are telling your stories, what are some of the things that storytellers should be looking out for? Yeah, I think right now the way I view this is, it's just another tool to be able to tell my story, right? We have film, we have TV, we have books, we have uh learning modules, you know, all sorts of things that we can tell a story. But this is another great tool because it adds just another technology depth to it that hasn't been there. And so, um you know, to me that's the exciting part about this is to see just another tool to be able to tell the story, the trans media, another layer of trans media. Yeah. What about you, Steve? Well, it to, to me looking at it from a business perspective. OK. It's, it is definitely building the wealth of your assets as I I was just mentioning. And um it matter of fact, it didn't really dawn on me until right now that to thinking about how that new world is gonna operate, it's gonna be extremely interesting, but it's your stories, the stories that you write that contain all of those assets. I think you called it something the other day uh the different devices within a story. Remember you said that? Well, those different devices are ideas, those end up becoming, you know, three dimensional objects that become a part of your digital assets and the value of what you're doing. So that actually goes back to one of the episodes we did on IP it's IP value. So it's all this stuff is all connected, all interconnected. Yeah, Wow. So this, well, this is a great way to end. I will just end with this. Um If you are a storyteller focus on your story because there's only gonna be more and more ways to tell it, but you gotta get your story down and make sure it's what you want it to be and make sure um you know, it speaks to you and that the power starts from within and moves outward. Exactly. Get your ducks in a row. All right guys. Good one. Thank you. Thanks everyone. Thanks for having me. Thanks for having me. Thanks to.

Lights, Camera, Story!

Telling Tales in Film and Television What makes film a compelling storytelling medium? How does film differ from a television series? How has moviemaking changed over the years? Our guest is Bill Sarine – Beachglass Films is a collaborative, creative-first company founded by brothers BIll and Douglas Sarine. We have a strong history of using our skillset to create high-quality entertainment. Our brand of creativity combines new strategies and technology with time-tested filmmaking expertise.   Folktellers Universe [https://folktellers.com/]   #Storytelling #BillSarine #BeachglassFilms #FolkTellers #StoriesToBeShared #Film #Hollywood   All right. Hey, welcome everyone back to the Folk Tellers podcast. Hey, uh, this is week Nine Lights, camera story, uh telling tales in film and television. Uh Our usual introduction, uh, some people call me the space cowboy. Uh This is uh Joseph Bastian and we're here with the abominable. How do you spell that? You know how to spell that? Yeah. Ok. Kurt David is here and the, uh hm, I'm not the extra. I heard you say the word A, is this like the Canadian edition of the, uh for you, the podcast for the P A? So, so we're gonna talk about storytelling uh in film and in television and we have a very cool guest. We'll bring on a little bit. Um, so I'll, I'll start with this, this quote. Um If it's a good movie, the Sound could go off and the audience would still have a pretty clear idea of what's going on. And that's a quote from Alfred Hitchcock. So, what is it about film that makes it unique, a unique storytelling medium? I'll tee it up with that. What do you think? Yeah, it's interesting because there are some parallels between television, which is what I'm involved with in film. And, and I've heard that before and in fact, I, I practiced that before. You watch a, a show without the sound on to see what that body language looks like, what the interaction the nonverbals look like. And I don't know how you do that with a film though because there's a lot to a film with music with uh you know, the visuals as well. Um But I think what, what he was trying to get at was that the story can be very evident whether the sounds on or not. I think that's probably what Hitchcock was referring to was that whether the sounds on or not these stories should be very evident. That's what my take away from that. That's, that's really good. I've got mine, I'll, I'll sit on mine until I ask Steve. So, what, what is your take on film is a storytelling medium like, right? Just your gut check or it's the closest thing to reality, right. Really? Yeah. Well, maybe tell me maybe video gaming is, um, moves even closer towards that. But obviously, when I make a film, you know, you're relating to it because it's related to other stories that, you know, are, obviously, are fictional or stories that, um, you know, uh, that have, uh been made up from the past. So it's, it's, uh, it's, it's definitely reality. I mean, um, that's definite. The other thing is, it's uh, it's very communal in my, in my opinion, like, you get to watch a movie collectively together. That's why it makes a very good medium. Right. Yeah. And it's typically like minded people that might like that genre. Right. In other words, it's a certain genre or a certain story that people attract to, like, like, you know, different movies that are out right now. There might be a certain genre that wants to watch a certain movie. It's like when we talked about music, it's very, very similar to that, you know, you get people that, you know, get, gather around to listen to a record, you know. Well, people obviously gather around to, to watch a movie collectively and, and experience that. So it makes a very good medium for storytelling because of that, of that fact. Right. That, that's really interesting. So I just thought it's something funny. So back in college, a woman I worked with, she said she goes, I had a terrible, terrible night last night. I was like, what happened? She goes, uh we went and this is when there's still Blockbuster video, right? So she, she goes, I went to rent National Velvet to watch with my mom and dad. And uh I rented Blue Velvet instead. Yeah, about 20 minutes in after the severed ear in the field. Uh The parents are like, where's the horses? It took 20 minutes to get to that part of the story. Talk about the, the communal experience. But um so, so here's my sort of my gut check on, on film and storytelling. I remember the first time. So I'm as a writer. Um you know, I write um novels and fiction and whatever so that what you do long hand, right? You're writing. So you're, you are telling, you are telling when you're writing. So you're telling the story in film. I, I tried to write a script and uh the editor just right across the front just wrote in big letters. Exposition. I'm like, what does that? What does that mean? Well, exposition is when you're telling and in film and a script, it's showing it's all direction. So when you write a script, you're not writing a narrative, you're writing, like here's the direction of how you want the scenes shot and yeah, you have dialogue and things like that, but it's, it's seen and setting and things like that where they're standing, this is what they're doing. This is like there's characters involved. It's like you're, it's like you're building something. It's really like the engineering of the, of a story. That's exactly it. So, so film as a visual medium, you are mostly showing, which is why like what Hitchcock said is you could turn the audio off so you could get rid of the dialogue and you should probably still be able to follow follow the story and this is why I'm not a screenwriter. So that's not a natural thing for me. So I have to ask you to right now. What's your favorite movie? What is your favorite film that you've seen? I can't answer this for what reason. Because if I answer it, my wife listens to this podcast. Just one. Ok. One of your favorite favorite? Yeah, we don't want a divorce court over this but one, there's a funny story behind it. Ok. That's why total recall was one of my favorite movies. And the reason being that it's, you know, that, um, it's a kind of a thorn in my side and her side is that, uh on our wedding night apparently. And I don't remember this. She said she said I rented it, you know, on our wedding night, I'm like, I don't remember that. She's like, yes you did. I, I recall it clearly. You rented this movie and apparently that's not what you do on your wedding night. So, anyhow, what, what do you do? I don't know. I'm not getting into that. I don't watch movies to, not to, not to self. Yeah. So what was the, what, what about the story in Toto Rico that attracted you? What is it you like? I, I love, first of all, I love science fiction. Um, and I like twisted plots where you don't know, really know what's going on. That, that to me is good storytelling. I love, you know, I love Hitchcock. I mean, love Twilight Zone I mean, all of that, that those old science, science fiction and adventure stories. I love those Indiana Jones. I love, I mean, everyone does. I mean, really? So, and that's a Stephen King short story. Total recall. Hm. Did you know that? Now you, do you ask me my, my favorite film? So now, now this will be esoteric. So it's actually a German film called uh Wings of Desire. And I believe it was uh Americanized with Nick Nicholas Cage was like angels in L A. They, they butchered but it was, it's, it was more of an art film. And basically the concept was, it was shot in Berlin before the wall came down and it was the story of an angel that gave up its immortality to become human and the backdrop of the Cold War of, of Berlin, the both sides of Berlin. It's just a beautifully shot movie. But um thematically, it's just what's it called? It's called Wings of Desire and the director, I think it won a bunch of awards again. You know, we're back into the eighties again. But it, it, it affected me. I was in college at the time and seeing that, that film. Um Yeah, that story really, it really affected me. And again, that's one of those things. It's a German film with subtitles so you could watch it. Uh without, you know, unless you, yeah, without the audio and you would, it would be a beautiful it would still be a beautiful film. Did you watch that on your wedding night? No, I didn't. No, no, no, because you guys would be sleeping. Oh, nice, nice. Well played. All right. So, uh, we, we've got, uh, Bill is here with us and Bill has a wide and varied background as a Hollywood film director. So definitely an expert in the field. But, um, Steve, you met Bill a long time ago. Why don't you, uh why don't you uh give Bill his big intro, Bill. Where did we meet? I think it was in a, a Met's office many, many years ago, probably. Yeah, probably. Yeah. Yeah, I remember um there was always a community of filmmakers and, and we're talking about our Met Zap here in uh in his office. And I remember sitting around the uh used to have these picnic tables and, you know, you never knew who was gonna be sitting there and, and one day, Bill was sitting beside me, we, we became very good friends. So, um so it was really, really good to hear your voice bud. It's uh great to be here and I'm really excited to talk to you guys about storytelling and, or whatever you'd like to ask me about. Well, I have a, I have a question. I know that you're a, you're a midwest guy uh from Chicago. And so I'd love to, the listeners, would love to know your story. Like, how did you get into Hollywood. How did you get from Chicago and get to Hollywood? Oh, man. Um I, I often say that my life is a cautionary tale. Um So it's uh I, I've had kids on set, you know, say to me like, oh, I don't, you know, just tell me what to do. And I said, I'm, I'm gonna tell you everything I've done and if you do the opposite, you should be fine. Um It's uh I literally, I was a, I was like an artist without a medium forever. And so, um you know, growing up, I just wanted to, I, I felt creative, I thought I wanted to do art, but I didn't really know, understand what that meant. So I tried everything. Like I was into photography, oil painting, jewelry, making, flower design, you name it. Like there was a thing that was creative, like I just want to try it. Um Some of those were massive failures. Um But uh you know, it was, it was just sort of like, kind of figuring out my, uh my, my place in the art world. And then at the same time, like, I just had a lot of business experience from a very young age. Uh I was managing companies when I was 15, 16 years old. And so I was sort of developing these two sides of it and managing a company in a way is a lot like directing because it's, it's, you it's leadership skills, right? You're really just learning how to communicate with people more effectively. You're learning that being a boss doesn't really mean anything in terms of like telling people what to do. It's really about inspiring people and, and making people wanna work with you and, and make, and helping people understand that. You've got a, a vision for where things are going. Hey, Bill, this is Kurt. I'm sorry to stop your story. But what, what kind of company are you managing at 15 and 16 years old? If you could elaborate on that before you go in? Sure. Sure. Um, you know, I, I worked for this, uh, family in Chicago and they owned a whole bunch of stuff. So, um, we had, we had some flower shops and um landscape supply companies and uh over the road trucking companies and like a strip mall and a tanning salon and like all kinds of stuff. I thought you were gonna say Amway or something. Yeah. So I, I kind of got involved at that level, like, like early on, you know, I, I showed up one day like they need somebody to sweep the floor and I just kind of never left. Um, like they had me on salary by the time I was 16. And, um, and it, you know, it was awkward too. I had people working for me who were 60 70 years old and, uh, you know, you, it's weird, you're, you're like a 15, 16, 17 year old and, and, you know, it's, you're, you're talking to somebody who's dramatically your senior. Uh and where I come from, that's a little bit awkward. Um But you get over that all that really quick. So, um anyway, so I had, I had like a good business background and good managerial experience for a long time. And, you know, I just kept pursuing this idea of what, where's, where's my artistic outlet. And my brother is an actor and a writer and a musician and a dancer. And like, he's a, whatever, a quintuple threat and he's been doing that since he could walk. And you guys, you guys are partners now. Yeah. And we're business partners now. Um But, but I think that exposed me from an early age to kind of like a little bit of the idea of drama and acting and stage plays and all that kind of stuff, but I still wasn't really involved in it. And, uh you know, for a minute, I thought I was going to be an actor and I quickly got rid of that idea. Um because I just don't feel like that's my part of the process. Um But I, uh you know, when I came, I came to Los Angeles more for weather, I think than anything else. My brother had been here for about six months. And so I said, can I come sleep on your couch for a month? And see if I like L A. He was like, yeah. Sure. Cool. And I got here and I got a job with Disney but like, not in the cool part. So I was, I was buried over, I wasn't on the studio a lot. I was over in consumer products doing like, you know, uh like business planning and operations and stuff like that over there. It wasn't, it wasn't even super cool. I mean, it was cool to me because I was like, I'm in L A and I get to rollerblade at the beach every weekend. Um Like that's as far as I thought it. And like I said, I, I don't, you still do that, don't you? Well, I live at the beach. I, I don't roll it as much as I should. Um I walk. Um Yeah, so, so, um you know, just being here was terrific because of, you know, one I had a steady job. That was great and I was kind of getting exposed to more and more things in the acting realm and, you know, eventually my brother and I, with a group of friends just started kind of, hey, on the weekends, let's shoot some short films and let's make some music videos and let's do stuff like that. And, you know, he was in a band at the time and, you know, there's all that going on. And so, you know, these little projects that were costing me way too much money, um, of my own dollars just, you know, plunking down and this is, I don't even want to say how many years ago, but, you know, I'm spending 789 $10,000 on a short show. That's a, no, all the time, you know, you know, Bill, what that sounds like, uh, in Detroit terms is working for one of the auto companies while you're building your own car in your garage. Exactly. Exactly. And I always tell people like, they're like, why do you make movies? And I'm like, I use Detroit as an example. I always say, you know, if you're in Detroit, you're probably gonna make cars. If you're in L A, you should make movies. Like that's kind of what the town does. It makes sense, makes sense. Yeah. So, so we, we did that eventually I wound up getting a job over at the studio. Um, and that was, that was amazing. It was, I was in production management over there, like, and it kind of started low and worked my way up and it was crazy because I, you know, during the week I'd be working on a $200 million movie and on the weekends I'm making like a $2 movie with my brother and, you know, you're kind of, you're learning both sides of it. Um, like the first short that I was directing, I, I was, I was so, I was so terrible. I can't even tell you, I go back and I cringe at that now. Um, because I just did, like, I, I thought I was Michael Bay or something, you know, like I was, I'm working on, I was working on Pearl Harbor and, you know, I'm, I'm scouting a location with, with my friends to go shoot this short as if I had a choice. Like it's the location we were gonna use like that. It was free. That's why we're using it and, and I'm like, I think I can make this work, you know, we're gonna have to repaint this wall and we have to move this furniture or whatever and they're like, yeah, so grab the other side of the couch. I mean, like, like I'm talking as if I'm, I'm speaking like there's a set decorating department and they were like, no, no, you're, you're the department like you're all, you're all the way to tomorrow. Yeah, like you doing the whole thing. Um Yeah. So, I mean, look, it, I had an incredibly uh fortunate experience at Disney. Uh It was a really good run for me. You know, I worked maj the majority of the time in live action film and television production. I moved over to development on the film side. Um I had partial responsibility for running them up as franchise for a while. Um You know, I've worked on over 30 films, six of them with budgets, over $200 million. I've worked on tons of network television shows. Uh, five of those went over 100 episodes. Um, Power Rangers, Power Rangers, right. Uh, no. Well, Power Rangers is post Disney actually. Um, and I actually, uh Saban had still owned Power Rangers at the time and, um, after I left Disney, I, I had done some stuff with the Muppets to kind of revitalize that franchise. And I got a call from Saban saying, hey, we know what you do with Muppets. Can you help us with Power Rangers? So I went over there and shot some Power Ranger stuff. That's, that's awesome. So, Bill, um, you've kind of run the gamut like you, it's like starting uh starting at the pizza shop, making the pizza and then owning a franchise really? I mean, the way way you've done that. And so what we were talking about today and you being the, our resident subject matter expert now in, in film and as a director, we're talking about film as a storytelling medium and clearly, like you said, you know, you started out, you had, you had the creative drivers and you tried a lot of different things uh to as, as a creative outlet uh to, to tell stories. So how do you think you fell into film? Like what resonated about telling stories through film, what resonated with you that, that was gonna be your medium, I think, um, of it, it's three things for me really, uh, 3d space and color have always made a lot of sense to me. Like, and I know it sounds kind of broad and weird. But, um, we like weird broads, by the way. Yeah, exactly. And, and I like a lot of, I tell a lot of you, like, I'm the, I'm like the gayest straight guy you're ever gonna meet. Like, I, I like, I like that's why you give good hugs. Oh, I'm glad you said hugs. I said hug ug um No, no judgment. Um No, I, I like, I, I love set design. I love production design. You know, my mom asked me to decorate her house. Like that's, that's, you know, that's just who I am from, from the get go. Um I'm actually a certified master floral designer. Um like I went through all the classes for that. Um I've done weddings and funerals and all that kind of stuff. Um So I just like color is really easy for me. Like I don't easy. Just meaning it all makes sense to me and 3d space does. So, so, you know, I walk into a blank room or a blank stage or whatever and I can tell you exactly what it's going to look like. Like it's all just lays out for me and I think those two things buttered up against. Uh and again, I wanna say it's like this managerial skill set that I have where again, it's that idea of like, you have to provide vision, you have to provide inspiration for people. But the way you do that is by connecting with them very one on one and very directly. And to do that, you really need to be like almost like a psychologist, right? You need to, you need to really instantly be able to get into a person's head and find out what makes them tick and how to move this forward. And it's the same with like directing actors in a part in that you really need to help them break down a character and understand this character. And you're gonna have these great discussions about motivation and, and what's going on in the scene and how is the scene affected by the story and, and all those things together. But you combine, you know, sort of like that understanding of the human psyche with a love of color in 3d space and all of a sudden it was like, oh, and I know how to manage people. So I was like, maybe, yeah, I was just like, I'll give this a try. And once I tried directing, I was like, yeah, this is, this is definitely something I enjoy. But if you don't thoroughly love it, you, we should do it because it's a lot of work. Like it's crazy. It's combination of people of, of the presentation of the film and the story, right? It's a combination you're not just creating and, and showing a film with color, with, with audio. It's, it's the people you have to manage as well to do that. Correct. I mean, that's where the difference. Yeah, I mean, you need, you need credibility and respect from, you know, from the crew, from all the crew members. But by the way, it's just imagine any other job you go into where every single person in the building and I'm talking from the craft service person to the producer, to the hair, makeup person. They all feel like they can do the job better than you, every one of them. Um And you've got, you know, sometimes two and sometimes 20 people looking over your shoulder like watching every single movie make like and oh, and here's the most famous person on the planet standing in front of you. Yeah. And so, so how do you balance that? So OK, so there's the creative aspect as a director where you're like, OK, we've taken this script and I have a, a vision of how I want this film to, to look and, and feel and then you've got the financial pressures of the studio saying, hey, this thing better make money and then you've got uh the whole production staff and everyone thinking that yeah, they know better, they can do it better than you. How do you um keep all those balls in the air without taking Xanax? Yeah, I'm not saying I don't take Xanax, you know, it's a, it's um the first and foremost I'd say is, you know, you gotta have an awesome team around you of folks that you communicate well with and probably have worked with in the past and everybody kind of, you know, that's why, like I've worked with my brother so many times. Like I don't, when I'm working with him, I don't have to wonder is this covered as that covered kind of thing? Like, yeah, you trust, you build that team of trust. So back to, back to your story really quick. When, when was your, uh, moment of, when you knew you made it, in your opinion? Oh, I don't think I've made it now really? I mean, yeah, I, I look, it's very, I'm, I'm not a braggadocious person by nature. So it's, I mean, I've done some really cool stuff but I, I really don't look back, I only look forward. So I just kind of look at what I haven't done and like, I don't think I'm a great director. I think I'm a better director every single time I direct, you know, and like I want to die on set. Like that's, that's how much I like. You're a practitioner. You're definitely a humble human being, that's for sure. Yeah, I just, I mean, I love, I love, I think it's a privilege and an honor to get to do the job, whether you're doing it for, you know, a million dollars or $1. I think it's the idea that you get to wake up and do something you enjoy that much, um for a living and get to work with so much, so many talented people. It's just like, how lucky are we that success all, all within? And that's a great, that's a great attitude to have. Um So Bill, one of our, uh our last questions is, what kind of stories are you attracted to? So, as a, as a director and as a filmmaker, um you know, I'm sure sometimes you've, uh you've had to take scripts that you didn't want to take. But like, if you had your druthers, what kind of stories, um do you like to tell through film? Well, hang on, I don't know what his favorite movie is. What's your favorite movie? Uh I, I don't know if I can say a favorite movie, I'm gonna tell you a couple of favorite movies. Um But, but, uh you know, I think if like go back in time and make any movie, my movie, I think, you know, Raiders Of The Lost Ark is, is way out there for me. Um It's, it's, you know, it's, I don't know, we as a kid, you know, I saw it in the theater and, you know, we, we would go back and re enact those scenes in the yard and stuff, you know, like swinging from a rope and all that stuff off a tree. Um it's, yeah, there's just, there's comedy and there's action and there's, you know, adventure and it's just, there's so many great things wrapped up in that. Um There's, I'd like some classics too. I mean, I think, you know, um as corny as it is like Casablanca to me is, is so incredibly well written and I don't think anybody could pull some of those lines off except for Bogie. Um just, just super fun. Um But I also have a lot of love for a lot of new films, you know. Uh So yeah, that goes into so what, what type of films, what type of stories do you like to tell? Like if you had your pick? So it, it's funny, like from a genre standpoint, I think I'd love to do more action drama than I have in the past. But that's just because I haven't done as much of that. Um And, and I think just like an actor, like if you said, like, what kind of parts do you want? They'd be like good ones, you know, like they don't care whether it's a horror or comedy or drama or what it is. They want to flex it out like they wanna go do all of them. Yeah. Yeah, I wanna do all of those for me though. What really, what the, the Met thing for me and, and I think a lot of folks forget about this on the writing process is it's all character, you know, um people sometimes think stakes are high because, you know, you're battling for the soul of all humanity and that really doesn't matter if, but if you're battling for the life of one person that matters, you know, like whose eyes am I seeing this through? And as long as you have a great character that you can really sink your teeth into that, um you know, is, is creatively well drawn and has depth to it. I mean, when I write scripts, you know, I don't, I write pages of bio about a character knowing that none of that's ever going to use that. You know, just everything. Tell me their favorite food. Why is it their favorite food? When did it become their favorite food? You know, like, what are they allergic to? What's their least favorite color? It gives you the foundation for that character, right? I mean, it just builds out the character to give the, the core of that back story. So, choices and the, the worst stories are stories that don't have good character development in my opinion. Yeah. So as long as you've got like a really well drawn character, that's got a lot of depth to it. That's, that, you know, has some, I mean, I have a lot of fun with actor friends of mine when they're doing auditions and, and they'll call me, like to come direct them on a, just a home tape thing. Uh, but one of the fun parts about that is, you know, they just get sides which are like three pages of script or two pages of script or something and maybe like a one or two sentence character description. So you have to make all these choices. Like you gotta hyper analyze every word on the page. You really gotta dig in and make all these choices and you know, we'll sit down for a couple of hours and just break down a character just who is this and what's going on here? And why did they say this then? Why did they say that there, you know, like, just kind of breaking down this thing, but that's so much fun, you know. So, so Bill, I got, you know, we're talking about stories, we're talking about movie making. I'm, I'm in a TV world, but as far as movie making has changed throughout the years, what, what's changed and where do you see this going as far as that type of storytelling? Uh I think the biggest thing that changed for me was, you know, there used to be like good cameras and bad cameras and there used to be like, uh we can't do some of that because it's out of budget, right? Uh I wish I had this or I wish I had that now. The wonderful thing is like, everything's possible, right? Like you, whatever you really want to be in this thing can 100% be in there, there's different ways it can be. What do you mean? Um You know, whether it's visual effects or, you know, like a, a helicopter shot, a helicopter shot was you had to get a helicopter, you know, now you can have a drone, you know, um, you know, if, if I wanted a, a motion move, you know, with that, that looks like a jib crane flying, you gotta go get yourself a crane. Now, you know, I could just position a couple of cameras and we, we can make the move and post. And I'm not saying that's easy. That takes really time for folks as well. But the idea that all this is possible. And so what I've, what I've moved to is because I used to try and figure it out, you know, and now I stopped figuring it out because I'm like, I'm probably gonna get it wrong. So, uh you know, I get my VP and my editor and post supervisor and V FX person and we all meet together and I say this is what I want this to look like. At the end of the day, you folks tell me the, the smartest way to shoot this, you know, because again, if I'm gonna guess I might guess wrong and I might guess expensive. So just let's work it out. But I, but you're still providing that vision, you're still providing that context and, and I'll bring photo references or samples or whatever. And they're like, I want it to look exactly like this. I want to look as close to that as possible or whatever. And I'm, I'm blown away sometimes by what they come up with, you know, because it's like, oh, that, that is definitely not what I would expect. So, to me, like, that's so awesome that, that we have this toolbox of ridiculous, ridiculously awesome tools, you know, to, to create stories with. Well, this has been great Bill. I mean, you literally are, are a wealth of knowledge. I mean, you know, so much about filmmaking, probably more than anyone that I've, I've met in, in Hollywood in the many years that I've worked there. And um and I'm very honored to be able to be working with you with and Joseph on a, on an upcoming project that we're doing collectively together. So that, that's, that's an amazing thing to me. No. Thank you guys so much. I'm, I'm a big fan. Uh I think is a really fun series and uh I think there's a lot of uh deep storytelling to be done with that as well. So let's go conquer the world with it. All right, we'll talk to you soon. All right. Peace and love, gentlemen. Thank you. Thank you. You know how much wealth of knowledge there was and what he was saying, oh, my goodness. There's for a young filmmaker just to sit and listen to that. I mean, but just the fact of the volume, like when you're working on a 202 $100 million movie as a director or in any capacity. Right. That's a big deal. No, definitely, definitely build huge, huge wealth of knowledge. Uh, not only, not only in, uh, you know what, it's like being a director in Hollywood but kind of how you get there and it's kind of a hodgepodge how you can get, you know, when I asked him the question, what was his aha moment of when he made it and his answer to that? Right. It's like, well, I still haven't made it yet. He just felt that way despite the projects he's been involved with, despite the, the amount of time he's spent doing this, I mean, that's a midwestern value perhaps that he still feels that way. But it's funny you say that because like when, when we're out there, we hear that from people who work in Hollywood, they say we love people from the midwest because they get shit done. Like there's, it's like not, it's a lot of, a lot of it's that work ethic, right? They're fairly humble about it, right? It's all about me. Yeah. No, it's blocking in and like we need to get so we've gotta get this done today. So let's break it down and let's let's execute when you start working at 14, 15 years of age. You know, I know you guys, I mean, I worked in the corn fields, you know, dessel corn, those were, those were hard, hard jobs. People, I mean, people, people that you said they were 70 years old, they had people that were working for him. That's incredible. I mean, but when you come from that working class and then you go out there, it is definitely different. I mean, those are the people that I see running a lot of the, uh these corporations. So because it is a business, here's, well, here's what struck me, here's what struck me about what Bill said it, it um echoes what you said earlier about filmmaking. It's they call it a production because you are building, you're assembling. And like from what I heard, what he was saying is the process of filmmaking. It is, it is a process, there is a way you do it, it is a building an assembly and a design and all those, you know, all those things uh which I find, which I find fascinating what I find really respectful of, of somebody like this is as I mentioned, the, the managing of people, right? You have the managing of people of all different types, you have your actors, you have your grips, you have everybody in between, but also you're managing the actual visual, audio, technical aspect of that production as well. So it's people and technology, it's, it's all this put together and pulling that together. That that's why you see a lot of names, you know, in the credits, uh, for different people, like, you know, they've worked together many, many times over and over again, like Jon Favreau for, for example, and the Mandalorian and he, um, a lot of the people, you know, you actually worked on Iron Man and that as well so that you see that commonality and why, because they want to work with the people that they can trust. They'll said it clearly. Um, and if you're doing anything, it doesn't really matter whether you're starting a small business, a pizza shop or whatever, you have to surround yourself with people that you can trust and that can do the work and get things done. And if they can't, that's the, those are the wrong people to hang out with, you know, and leadership. He, he also hit on this too. Leadership. It's not about bossing people around leadership is about service. It's where you actually are helping the people around. You rise up. It's the best they can be. We didn't ask this. I'm sorry, we didn't ask this when we had him on. But what's the best way to, to look up Bill and find out what he's doing and projects and everything? Yeah. Um, well, I know his uh, beach glass films dot com. That's Bill's his production company, his brother. Yeah, him and his brother, him and his brother. Yeah. So you guys got kind of sparked an idea in my head that I, I gotta get out. Um uh oh no, this, this whole, this whole idea like you said about trust, right? To me, I always think I'm thinking in terms of story. So the story craft, the story craft of what it takes to make a film, which means you have to put a team together and there's a process and it's a, it's truly is a, a production. And Steve, you said the propensity for people to work with people that they trust. Um part of it, part of that trust, I, I believe in the story craft is now the creative part. It's like you need to understand that person's creativity and what their, you know what their end game is, right? Like, and you wouldn't know that right out of the gate. But Bill said he likes working with his brother because his brother knows what he's looking for. So he could probably, they could probably finish each other's sentences and like in the, in the storytelling, in the story craft and the story making that is such an advantage on so many fronts, not only on the business side, being able to produce that film or produce that book or show or whatever, but also the creativity to find someone that their creativity resonates with your creativity. How do you, how do you guys do that with your own stories when you're writing stories? When you're creating stories? How, how do you do that. I was gonna say, I mean, literally you use a sports analogy. Uh It's like a relay, you know, like I, I do a lot of stuff, you know, and a lot of writing with Joseph and it's effortless. I'll write apart. He'll write a part and then somehow I don't know how it happens. It's just, they sink together and, and, and then when I go back and read a lot of the stuff, it's like they were written by one person. That's when you truly know that you've put together a team of individuals that you know, that are, are connected on that level. And that's not easy to do. You have to, to, to do that. You have to, I spend a lot of time with Joseph. According to Laurie, I was gonna ask, you know, we are dating now as Bill said, OK, so the uh the gay straight guys that I know my wife, Julia says she's like, uh, oh your girlfriends on the phone really? Stop it. Anyhoo, curse my girlfriend abominable. No, wait, no, no, no, no, no. This is really, this is really important because it's, it's finding people that you have an affinity for a deep level of trust and understanding that you find a way to work with uh both personally and professionally. And so Steve said he doesn't know how it comes together. I this is how I know it comes together because someone again at the end of the day, someone has to own the story, right? So, um you know, we worked on uh Jack's Medal. So this was Steve's story about his great uncle and I know he's, he's talked about it before. But um it was really his personal story along with the story of his great uncle coming over from England and winning the fa cup. And you know, all these, all these great things, but it was a deeply personal story. So you, you know, I had to give Steve the room, it was his story. But he was, you know, I finally said, like he said, I got to get this story out, but he was so close to it. I said, listen, just get something out and I'll, I'll provide the framework and the stuff, objective lens that you could, yeah, I, I'll, I'll like help in the, in the crafting of it. But the, the, the heart of it, the, the spirit of the story, he had to take ownership and he did take ownership of it and that's the way we're able to work together because, you know, I, I stepped back and allowed him like that, that creative space and that personal space. Um and, and took the role of like, I'm gonna be more like the sort of the, yeah, the former and the shaper, right? And, and conversely like, you know, you know, we've done that, you know, we've done that with, with other things. Yeah. So, but at the end of the day, like, you know, Bill is a director. Someone's got to own it, like, own it. Well, what's interesting about Jack's Medal? And I, I think I, I'd love to close with this part of it. Is that, that forward that you wrote, that was from the perception of Jack even though he wasn't alive anymore. Right. Right. So, so I would remember I asked you to, to write, I do. In fact, I wrote it, I did. But this turned out even better in my opinion because, well, it was just a thought that I had him and like the only person that can write the forward to this book is Jack. But then I thought, well, but he's dead. It's a problem. How can that happen? So I wrote just a, I jotted down a bunch of notes and I called Joseph and I said, Joseph, somehow through the Ether, Jack has to write this. And so he took the notes that I had and he wrote it back and I made a few modifications to it after that. And it's, it literally was written through the ether. I mean, it was that, that's one of the most amazing things that I've ever worked with him on is just that forward, you know, forget the rest of the book. But the rest of the book is I like, it's a good book. I think it's a great story. But but the, but that, that forward is so unique because I don't know, a lot of books that have the forward written by someone that's dead and the way it was done, it was phenomenal, in my opinion, right? It was much better than what I could have wrote. But that said, imagine the filmmaking side of that, right? If you were to take that book and that story and make that film and make that forward that part of that film, you have to be able to that. Here's the omniscient narrator, right? Like the unseen one, when you, you can see the visual of, you know, a desk with someone with a, an old ink pen and, you know, writing out in cursive, you know, this, the thoughts of like I'm dead now or whatever. I, you know, they did that uh series of unfortunate events. Um that whole series was like that where you had the the narrator was this sort of mysterious person that was guiding you through the story, through the story. And, and you and Jack was that was that character? I mean, because when I, when Steve gave me the notes and I wrote that um that intro uh that forward, I wrote it like, like a character, like this is a character, this is the character, like there has to be some sort of mystery and humor and it had to be representative of, of what Jack's personality was probably like. And Steve and I had multiple discussions about that and then, yeah, um, it came out, it came out great. So, before we wrap up, we've got to circle back about Kurt. Your favorite movie? My favorite movie. So, we've heard yours, right? We've heard both of yours. Um, this is uncharacteristic for somebody like me who has a strong sports background. You know, I'm, I'm big and burly. I'm, I'm abominable, I believe is what you addressed me as earlier. Uh my favorite movie of all time Bar and, and sometimes my kids laugh at me because we'll play it in the house. Is the sound of music. And here's why I, I've been to where they tape it at in Austria. I love that area. I love music. I love the story. It's got the drama, it's got the love line, it's got the war, right? It's got all this going on and somehow they put it all together with beautiful music, with beautiful scenery, beautiful vis, you know, visionary. Um That's why it's one of my favorite movies. I have a theory that, that our favorite movies are usually tied to some seminal uh moment of where we were in our, in our lives. Like that's the, that's the emotional. So, let's see. In 1965. Yeah, I don't think I would have been thinking a whole lot about it, but no, honestly, I just love the, the creativity. I love the uh the music, the music is a big part of it, obviously. And so and great acting. Yeah. Great acting. Absolutely. All right guys, uh film, television and storytelling, we could go on forever. But, uh I think this is a good one. Bill was awesome. Great. And on that note, uh thanks everyone and, uh, we'll see you on the flip side.